Dancehalls in Acadia Parish

Evangeline Club

  Evangline Club, Eunice, Photo courtesy of Thomas Marcotte, circa 1995 ...

Courville’s Lounge

Reggie Matte play this first dance there in the mid to late 1960s- “Located in Church Point off the big road.” ...

Tonga Island Lounge

LouisianaDancehalls.com reader comment by Roger Tabb: “Tonga Island Lounge was located at the corner of Hwy 90 and Austria Rd in Duson. It has been renovated and is now a home. Would go there with my mom when children were allowed in bars. This was in the 1970s.” ...

Berro’s

LouisianaDancehalls.com reader comment by Steve Picou: “My grandfather, Albert Robert “Berro” Picou Sr. was a colorful character and proprietor of Eunice’s first pharmacy (Picou’s, still in business under Robbie Chachere). After WWll, my father, Eugene D. “Coonie” Picou rushed through pharmacy school at Loyola and in 1949 returned to take-over the drug store because Berro had a health scare, possibly a small stroke. Upon my father’s return, Berro disappeared for weeks at a time. After a few months he announced that he’d built a fine nightclub on the Basile Highway. Sure enough, he built a spacious, tin-roofed wooden building large enough to hold more than 800 patrons. It had a kitchen, a bandstand, a large bar and even a room on the side for gambling. It opened around 1950 and became a busy community resource, hosting meetings, bingo games, events, and lots of concerts and dances. Big bands were the main attraction. Being on Hwy 190, the interstate of its day between Houston and New Orleans, lots of famous acts used the club to fill dates. The Ink Spots, the Platters, and most famously, Louis Armstrong and his All Stars, played Berro’s. But, these were black bands playing a white club during the Jim Crow years, and the family was not popular in some circles. When Armstrong was booked, the drug store received threatening phone calls that they reported to the FBI. Armstrong’s band had a white piano player, Marty Napoleon (who just died a few weeks ago, much to my chagrin, I didn’t know he was alive or I’d have tried to interview him), and this mixed band was evidently particularly disturbing to racists sensibilities. The show went off without a hitch and is a fading legend as there are few living patrons. I have a few pics of the Armstrong show, but no others or of the club thanks to the flood waters of Katrina. But I suspect there are pics out there among family and others. Herman Fusilier collaborated with me many years ago and ran a story in the Daily World that I hoped would connect with people who wanted to tell their stories about that night, and he even found a small ad in the archives. I’d be happy to share more about this and to contact cousins to see if we can find pictures. The club closed on New Year’s Eve 1954-55 after Berro died at the young age of 59 from having lived life a little too well. His wife, Wille Mae Ramsey Picou, died the following year, at the same age, for the same reasons. I was born in 1956 and only know them by the colorful stories I heard from family and friends.” ...

Theriot’s Western Lounge

Crowley Post Herald article, October 9, 1970 describes at is being on “west Highway 90” and “providing the finest Country and Western music backed up by traditional French music on Friday and Saturday nights.” Photo courtesy of T-Bert and A.J. LeBlanc ...

Quebedeaux / Leger house dance

Jeanette (Bourque/Leger) Wickham: “My mother and father grew up in the Northern outskirts of Crowley, Louisiana past the old stock yard and near a coulee that goes to Ville Platte. My mother lived there since 1916. “In the 1930s, her family (Quebedeaux/Leger) used to have house dances for surrounding relatives and friends. It was my mother’s job to attend to the old RCA phonograph record player with the records in the order of songs to be played , changing the records out as each song ended. Her brother, Dennis was a naturally gifted musician and he could play the guitar, accordion, fiddle, and harmonica without ever having taken a music lesson in his life. So, naturally she grew up listening to his music and others.” ...

Party Time Lounge

From matchbook cover: The Party Time Lounge 207 E. Texas Avenue Rayne, LA ...

Rice Theatre

Lazy Lester, Warren Storm, Jockey Etienne and C.C. Adcock at the Rice Theatre, Crowley ...

Four Corners Club

Megan Brown’s grandmom: Sherry Fruge: South of DI’s- corner of 97 & 98 west of Iota- teen night where Cookie & the Cupcakes, Rod Bernard- early to mid 1960s (NE corner):1956 & 1957- Tuesday teen night ...