St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1906-12-08
. THE VILLAGE
in The PRAIRIE. =
More Evidence Of the Marvellous Development
of 81. Landry Towns.
SALE OF LOTS In WILLIE PLATTE
Corner Lots Sell For Nearly as Much as Entire
Plat WouId Have Brought Three
Years Ago,

That the awakening Of st. Landry
is genuine and general is more and
more made evident every day.
\ Sections and towns few years
past counted among the things that
breathed not" to-day are among those
"of beauty and of life."
/ The railroads have acted like an
electric battery, distributing life and
energy through every fibre Of the
body of this great parish, heretofore,
before the railroads advent, dormant
and backward because its greatness
could not reach out and make itself
known to the world; its resources
and advantages smothered in a little
world of its own.
Vile Platte, eighteen miles from
0pelousas, wasn't worth the picking
four years ago, if we believe some of
Tits leading business men. Property
there was worthless, except to those
Il -. -. =
who owned it and lived on it and
maintained themselves BY the COM
merce afforded within its own con-
fines and the immediate adjoining
territory. HoWcoald it be otherwise?
No railroad, no naVigable water, no
thing but its own fat.
Things are different now. The
Louisiana East & West made a sur
vey through that section, passing
through Vile Platte. At once, on
mere prospects, things began to look
up The road began building, and
with it the town of Vile Platte.
New residences and business places
began going up. Surrounded by as
fertile and staunch a country as is to
be found anywhere, where corn and
cotton and cane and rice and fruit
and trucks grow like blades of grass
in the autumn" it was beyond ques-
tion that with railroad facilities Vile
Platte was bound to thrive and grow.
Then came the contemplated line of
the Southern Pacific Railroad, from
Mamou, through Vile Platte and to
0pelousas. And now Vile Platte
may be said to be ON the threshold of
marked prosperity, never dreamed of
by its citizens. Twenty-Five new
buildings have gone up in the past
few months! A new two-story hotel
is now in process Of erection, and a
large livery stable has just been COM
pleted. Streets have been opened
and fields cut into town lots. And
all this before a locomotive whistle
has been heard in the town. But the
roads are assured; one is building and
will reach the town by Christmas.
A few years ago a certain tract Of
seven arpents of land, situated in the
corporate limits of the town but not
in its present business radius, could
have been bought for $500. In fact
there was no sale for it, and it laid
there idle, the stamping grounds of
stray cows and horses. The Louisiana
East & West ran its right-of-Way
within three blocks of this tract. and
last Saturday, at a succession sale of
the stagg heirs, who owned those
seven arpents in conjunction with the
Hinckley heirs, twenty-eight hundred
dollars was realized for it! It was
cut up in town lots, 42x150, and the
corner lots brought nearly as much
as the entire tract could have been
bought for three years ago.
Vile Platte was Incorporated in
1857, we are told. In those days it
was not required to have q fixed popu
lation in order to secure a charter.
There were but few stores there
the Dardeaus, the Coreils and the
Reeds comprising the population. It
has maintained a population Of about
two hundred ever since, going down
to 150 at one time. 1t has now about
twelve stores, all doing q good busi-
ness, and we learn that its citizens
will soon organize Progressive Lea
que and go after industries. As we
said before, Vile Platte is in the
midst OF one of the richest sections
of the parish.