Dauphine Club

Status: Closed

Parish: St. Martin

Location: Parks

1025-A St. Louis Drive, Parks: Found in “Hustling to Survive” by Robert E. Maguire- p. 198: One of the few black dancehalls in the area. Opened in the late 1910s by Rene Dauphine on the west side of the bayou- people came from miles around to socialize there. Bands included the United Brass Band (dixieland, ragtime & marches) who were very popular and packed in a crowd- disbanded in 1922, the Black Diamond Band (eight piece group comprised of older Union Brass Band member and younger Parks musicians- which rose to some local, regional, and national notariety), the Yelpin’ Hounds & Black Eagle Band (both from Crowley in 1920s). “Well, they ain’t had no other dance (hall) nowhere around. You take from way in Arnaudville to here, well unless they’d give a little house party, a little house dance, they ain’t had no dancin’ at al… all them places like Arnaudville, Cecilia, they ain’t had no dance. They all come here. They had four big dances here: New Year’s, Easter Sunday, Fourth of July, and Mardi Gras. Now them four dances, you gonna see people! A line of people from maybe here to that school yonder tryin’ to get in.” Movies were occasionally shown there- and attended by blacks & some whites. Alcohol wasn’t served there in the early days- because women wouldn’t go into a bar for fear of being branded ‘bad’- the liquor was bought from vendors outside of the dancehall or from the white saloon next door. Rene Dauphine, Jr.- “Blacks would go in the back and buy. But they couldn’t go in the front. you see, they’d have a place where you could go there and drink there, buy your liquor there.” 1939 a fight broke out over a dispute over black man owing a dime at the saloon for a beer. The white barkeep got hit in the back of the head with a brick, and the black guys ran. the brick thrower was caught and pulled into the saloon and beaten in the head with pool cues- ended up in a mental institution. A white policeman and his brothers chased another of the black men into the the Dauphine dancehall- they were beating him in the middle of the dance and everyone ran out- one of the white men was shot in the head & killed. After that, the dancehall shut down. It was sawed in half due to a family squabble- the half that moved across the bayou to the East side became the Tuxedo Club. The half that stayed on the west side became St. Paul’s Hall- used for community meetings.-