St. Landry Catholic Church

The 1909 church seated about two thousand, yet in 1920 Black parishioners, who had been limited to two back pews, founded their own parish, Holy Ghost, about a block away. Its school began in 1874 as St. Joseph's Academy for Colored, the parish's first Catholic school for Black students, and closed in 1971 when it merged into Opelousas Catholic School. The marker also places Jim Bowie's baptism and marriage here in 1814, but Bowie's biographers put his baptism in San Antonio in 1828 and his marriage in 1831.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Le Vieux Village and the Venus House — 0.9 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.
• Prairie Acadian Cultural Center — 21 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.
• Atchafalaya Welcome Center — 25 mi
  A state welcome center inside the Atchafalaya Basin, the nation's largest river swamp, with exhibits on Basin history and life, a film, a crawfishing boat and French-speaking staff.

More markers nearby

• Lt. Fr. Joseph "Verbis" Lafleur — steps away
• Opelousas Catholic School — steps away
• Black Academy At Mt. Olive Baptist Church — 0.2 mi
• Louisiana Memorial Methodist Church — 0.7 mi