Lake Arthur Area Settled

Parish History    Lake Arthur Area Settled

Early settlers drawn to fertile ground, plentiful game The Indians who
lived there probably had a name for the lake. The French settlers
probably had a different name for it. Lake Arthur is the name that
finally stuck. It was named for Arthur LeBlanc, who settled on its
shores. People began calling it la lac d'Arthur, which translates into
Lake Arthur. In ''History of Lake Arthur,'' Calvin Dale Smith and Allen
Fitzgerald wrote,  ''In 1811 Atanas Hebert came to Lake Arthur to
settle. That marks a date we can follow with accuracy.''


The little village of Lakeside was across the lake to the south and the
area called Shell Beach was also south of the lake. Both areas were
settled before the present town of Lake Arthur.

With a post office, hotel, newspaper and several stores it appeared
Lakeside might become the largest resort in Southwest Louisiana. Many of
the earliest settlers, who later moved to Lake Arthur, chose that side
of the lake. It was planned as a resort, with orchards and small crops.
But within a few years Lakeside fell. Two freezes killed the orchards
and crops and schooners bringing tourists and freight began going to the
north side of the lake. The railroad came in 1903 and roads were built
to bigger towns, so gradually most of the commercial projects moved
north of the lake to the village of Lake Arthur.  

Some of the earliest settlers were patrician Creoles from New Orleans,
who built south of the lake. Jean Revlon built a large residence in
1853, which still stands and is now known as the Macdonell plantation.
The deLauneys, Deschamps and Gaithes, all of whom had been involved in
the French Revolution came from New Orleans. Mrs. deLauney played
leading roles in French theater and opera.Louis Gaithe moved from France
to New Orleans in 1870 where he stayed a short time and played French
horn at the French Opera House. Gaithe and his wife, Charlotte Morris
Gaithe, had three sons Eugene, Jules and Paul who remembered that their
father had at first lived in a small lean-to under the oaks, before
building his home south of the lake. Paul, who was born south of the
lake at the old home place, later bought in Lake Arthur. He told many
stories of his family's early days in this area. ''When ducks were so
plentiful they clouded the sky and as they swooped down to eat acorns,
before there was much rice, my brothers and I one day shot 200 pairs of
ducks,'' he said. ''We iced them good and had Captain Laurents take them
to the French Market in New Orleans where the fancy restaurants were
offering two dollars a pair. ''But the Gaithes had a problem typical to
shipping of those days. ''The restaurateurs,'' Paul related, ''said most
of our birds were rotten and they would not pay for the whole lot. They
sent back $14 and we bought a surrey with it.'' The same thing was
happening to the rice farmers. Gaithe recalled one time during a rather
rough voyage; water spilled over two bags of rice. The Galveston mill
turned down the whole cargo, and the Gaithes had to pay $125 for
shipping and received nothing for the crop.

Paul and Teresa Gaithe have four daughters, Marguerite Gaithe, Louise,
Lillian Longman and Marion Perry.Eugene and Isabel Gaithe had five
children, Alvin ''Newt,'' Louis, Hortense Miller, Isabel Theriot and
Cecile Duhon.Jules and Ernestine Gaithe have three children in Lake
Charles, Laurence Faithe, Catherine Barnett and Eldora Gaithe. Henry,
Leon and Laura are deceased.

Desire Hebert became one of the wealthiest men in the area and owned
vast tracts of land, most of which he sold to Captain Lowery before
moving to Lake Arthur. The first sawmill within Lake Arthur corporate
limits was built and operated by Lee Fox.    

Three major events turned this area into great rice-raising country. In
1876 the first rice mill was built by Gustave Laurents and D. Derouen.
Originally built where the Emile Andrus home stands, it was moved across
the lake to Myer's Point. In 1887 Anatole Gauthier and C. St.Germain
brought in the first rice thresher and portable steam boiler. In 1890
the first rice irrigation pumping plant was built on Bayou Lacassine by
Leon and Jacque Viterbo. All of this turned Lake Arthur into successful
rice country. Dominique Monzelun was another early settler of Lake
Arthur. He came from the Basque country of southern France in about 1876
and settled on the Vermilion side of the lake. He was a carpenter and
all of his sons were carpenters. They built many of the present homes in
Lake Arthur. Dominique had five children, Joachin, Emile, Theodore and
Antoine, all of whom lived in Lake Arthur, and Josephine, who was
married to a Murray and lived in Westlake. Many descendants live in Lake
Arthur and Lake Charles today.

Boat captains were an important part of the lives of these early
settlers. The lake, which is about one mile wide and nine miles long,
connects with the Mermentau River, a navigable waterway to the Gulf of
Mexico. Capt. Frank Dyer was an early captain who operated steam tugs
and barges, hauling rice and other freight. Capt. D.E. Sweet brought his
tug ''Ida'' south in 1886 and then bought the ''Harry Bishop,'' followed
by the sternwheeler ''Louisa Storm'' and the ''Olive'' which made trips
to Grand Chenier for 17 years. That was the only means of travel between
Lake Arthur and Cameron Parish.  

One of the largest families in the area was the Broussards. It is almost
impossible to pinpoint which Broussard arrived first. One of them, T.C.
''Tozan'' Broussard was a popular druggist in Lake Arthur. There was
Pete, whose son Adam lives in Lake Arthur today. South of the lake, near
Vermilion Parish, was Pierre Mozard Broussard, whose grandson and
granddaughter, Patrick Broussard and Irene Coco, are current Lake
Charles residents. There are more Broussards in Lake Arthur than any
other family.  

When the famous comedian of the '20s and '30s, Irwin Cobb, visited Lake
Arthur on a duck hunt, he remarked, ''Broussard is not a family, it is a
clan.'' Another visitor during hunting season was Franklin D. Roosevelt,
before he was stricken with polio. Industrialist S.R. Kress was another
well-known hunting visitor.   

''The Live Oak Hotel was quite a spectacle in this comparative
wilderness,'' wrote Smith and Fitzgerald. ''It was one of the most
modern hotels in south Louisiana. It was maintained and operated as a
hotel until 1922, and then turned into the Lake Arthur Hunting Club.''
Florin Champagne is remembered as one of the prominent guides of that
club, before he opened his own.He was widely recognized as a master
guide and marksman and won many trophies and awards.

Dorothy Dix was also a frequent visitor to Lake Arthur as a guest of the
Deschamps family.


 In 1895 the Lake Arthur Camp Grounds was incorporated
as South Louisiana Holiness Camp Meeting Association. The group bought
10 acres of land along the lakefront for $550. The campground is still
widely used. Dormitories were built in 1895 for men and women. At first,
hay was put on the cabin floors for beds. The Rev. R.P. Howell was
instrumental in its founding and was also Lake Arthur's first village
clerk in 1904. His son, Dr. Robert Howell, now deceased, was a prominent
Lake Charles doctor. In 1899 community leaders platted the town and in
1903 a petition was submitted to Gov. W. Heard for its incorporation.
There were 250 landowners in the immediate area. The petition was
granted and the appointed officers were Dr. V.A. Miller, mayor; J.B.
Streater, Lee Fox and M.M. Young, aldermen; and the Rev. R.P. Howell,
clerk. For the first time, the Southern Pacific Railroad came to Lake
Arthur from Lake Charles in 1904, bring an excursion to the campgrounds.
Just north of the lake is a little group of homes and farms, in an area
called Andrus Cove. It was settled before 1832 by an old patriarch,
Hiram Andrus.       

''Hiram Andrus was lord and master of all he surveyed,'' wrote Franklin
Hildebrand in ''As I Remember.'' ''He could stand under the
spreadInvalid measure ing branches of the great oaks which shaded his
homestead, in the cove bearing his name, and look north, south, east or
west and all that he saw spreading prairies, thousands of cattle and
wild horses and highly nutritious grass to feed the mall were his as far
as the eye could see.''  

Hiram and his wife Lizeme had eight children D.D., Eliza Valdetero,
Tabitha Gauthier, Joe,B.C. ''Cake,'' Elise Gauthier, Emile and Pumela.
According to Hiram's descendants, he had a Spanish land grant and also
bought other acreage for 25 cents an acre. But when it came time to pay
taxes, he gave away some of his land. His property reached from Lake
Arthur to Jennings.

The Andrus descendants are well known in the Lake Arthur-Jennings area.
One descendant-in-law, Miriam Andrus of Jennings, recalls a family
incident in which Arthur Andrus came home from World War II in a shell-
shocked state and was sent to a VA hospital. The hospital got this man
mixed up with another patient, calling him by another name for many
years, before the family got it all straightened out. Edward L. Andrus
was an all-state football player for Jennings High School and also a
football hero at LSU. Today Lake Arthur citizens are a mixture of
Acadians and French soldiers who came to the area in the early days in
addition to Anglo-Americans, who arrived, mostly from the state of Iowa,
during the 1890s. They have all come together as a community who work
happily and with pride in their heritage.

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Lake Arthur History, Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Kathy LaCombe-Tell
Source; Lake Charles American Press
Publication Date: 10/20/1991; Page and Section: 20 IM
Submitted April 2002

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