Senator John F. Kennedy Presidential Campaign Speech

Judge Edmund Reggie, a Crowley Democrat, invited the Kennedys to the festival in 1959. He expected a Massachusetts Catholic running for president in 1960 to be warmly received in southwest Louisiana, where the parishes are heavily Catholic and the food is Cajun. Jacqueline Kennedy, who had studied at the Sorbonne, briefly addressed the crowd in French, with an accent a little different from the locals'. Kennedy crowned the queen, attended the parade and a dinner in his honor and wore a rice hat beside Edwin Edwards, later the state's governor.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Louisiana Oil and Gas Park — 18 mi
  The roadside park at Jennings where Louisiana's oil industry began in 1901, with a replica derrick, a pioneers' plaque and Gator Chateau.
• Prairie Acadian Cultural Center — 20 mi
  A National Park Service center in Eunice on the Cajun prairie, with exhibits on the Acadians who settled the prairies, a Courir de Mardi Gras display, free music and cooking demonstrations, and the shuttered Liberty Theatre nearby.
• Vermilionville — 23 mi
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Le Vieux Village and the Venus House — 28 mi
  A heritage park in Opelousas built around the Venus House of about 1791, the home of a free Creole woman of color, Marie Francois Venus, with an old schoolhouse, Methodist church and the visitor center's zydeco music exhibit.

More markers nearby

• Crowley (North Avenue F) — steps away
• Crowley Louisiana Post Office 1913 — 0.2 mi
• Crowley (North Parkerson Avenue) — 0.5 mi
• David L. & Jeanette Ross May House — 0.5 mi