LeLeux Dancehall

Status: Closed

Parish: Acadia

Location: LeLeux

Photos taken by Russell Lee, October 1938. Photo of site by John Sharp.

From “Louisiana: A Guide to the State”: “Leleux is little more than a post office, general store, and combination saloon and dance hall, where fais-dodos, or Cajun “breakdown” dances, are held each Wednesday evening.”

From “Louisiana Fiddlers” by Ron Yule: “Besides his father, some of the first music Lionel (LeLeux) learned was from listening to music at his Grandfather Ernest Leleux’s Dancehall across the road from his house. He would listen to one of his favorite fiddlers, Bascom Mouton, from his front porch because he was too young to attend the dances in person.”

Mentioned in “History in Vermilion Parish, La., Vol. 1”:  Eve Leleux got a piece of land from her father and her husband Ernest had plans to build a supermarket/mall store on the newly built and highly travelled road between Kaplan and Crowley. “The store expanded until there was a bar, a room for men to play cards, a post office, a grocery store where one could buy anything from oil lamps to buggies and wagons. Then for entertainment he built a large dance all about 60 x 80 feet. (Ernest Leleux’s) home was situated just behind and between both giant buildings. When Ernest died, the store and dancehall closed.”

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Photo Credit: Russell Lee, Library of Congress