Saint Francis de Sales Church

The parish began without a church. Founded around 1847 by Rev. Zéphyrin Lévêque, it first held Mass in the Terrebonne Parish courthouse, and a Romanesque church was finished in 1848. A hurricane in the 1920s damaged it, and construction of the present Gothic Revival building of brick and copper began in 1936 under Rev. August Vandebilt, finishing in 1938. On March 2, 1977, Pope Paul VI created the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux and the church became its cathedral. Bishop Warren Boudreaux, the first bishop, is buried beneath the marble altar.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Southdown Plantation and Terrebonne Museum — 1.1 mi
  A Greek Revival sugar plantation house in Houma, worked by 233 enslaved people by 1852, with the last Terrebonne mill's story and a worker's cabin of about 1885.
• Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge — 5.3 mi
  A 4,212-acre refuge of freshwater marsh and cypress-tupelo swamp southwest of Houma, with a nature trail to a boardwalk and observation deck and mostly boat-only access.
• Laurel Valley Village — 14 mi
  A sugar plantation's workers' village south of Thibodaux, with cabins of about 1845, shotgun houses, a store and cemetery, and the 1887 strike and massacre in the parish around it.
• Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 15 mi
  A Jean Lafitte National Historical Park center on Bayou Lafourche with Acadian and bayou-life exhibits, a 200-seat theater and ranger-guided boat tours to the E. D. White house.

More markers nearby

• Terrebonne Parish Courthouse Square Oaks — steps away
• 1834-1934 — steps away
• Fifth Districts High School — 0.2 mi
• A History of Terrebonne Parish — 0.3 mi