Washington

History

Washington was founded as the Post of Opelousas in 1764 as a French trading post. In 1766, the first church, La Iglesia paroquial de la Immaculada Conception del Puesto de Opelousas, was established and the post later became known as Church Landing in 1822. In 1835, the town was incorporated under the current name. In the early 1800s smaller steamboats started traveling up Bayou Teche to the Opelousas River, renamed Bayou Courtableau, at Barre’s Landing (named after Alexander Charles Barré) that became Port Barre, then to Washington where there was a bottleneck as the steamboats could not turn around. In 1848 Captain George W. Haygood completed a steamboat turnaround and Washington became an inland port. The Grimble Bell School was located in Washington and was the first African American school in the parish when it opened in the 1830s; it was forced closed by white vigilantes in 1860. During the American Civil War, some of Union General Nathaniel P. Banks' forces occupied several towns in the region, including Washington, which was then larger than the parish seat of Opelousas. Banks' men stripped the towns of supplies of all kinds, including food, livestock, cotton, and other trade goods; the total value of the goods was estimated at more than ten million dollars. After the war, there was extensive white resistance to the emancipation and enfranchisement of former slaves or freedmen. Some insurgents based in Opelousas formed the Seymour Knights, a unit of the Knights of the White Camellia. In the fall of 1868 before the election, white Democrats in Washington rejected African Americans who sought to join their political party, and the Seymour Knights physically drove the Blacks out of the city. A series of events followed in which Blacks marched on Opelousas and…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and 1.15% is water.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  452
• Northern Mockingbird

  Mimus polyglottos (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  412
• Carolina Wren

  Thryothorus ludovicianus (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  390
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  341
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  272
• Carolina Chickadee

  Poecile carolinensis (Audubon, 1834) · Aves
  269
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  253
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  234