Lasting Lore

New roadside markers will highlight local legends

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As a Louisianan, I know that history and identity are built as much upon legends and lore as they are upon fact. 

The William G. Pomeroy Foundation agrees. Soon, thanks to their largesse, sites such as the rumored trove of Jean Lafitte’s treasure, Marie Laveau’s haunted home, the Honey Island Swamp with its infamous monster, and all of the graves of rougarou victims will be properly honored with the national Legends and Lore program. 

Partnering with the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, the Pomeroy Foundation will fund heritage roadside markers for proposed sites around the state, which will then be highlighted on the Foundation’s national map. Residents can apply through nonprofit organizations, municipalities, and nonprofit educational institutions for specific sites and stories to be included at wgpfoundation.org/history/legends-lore. 

“To me, this is exciting because it is a way to validate stories that are told generationally, stories that we can’t put down,” said the Center for Louisiana Studies Assistant Director for Research John Sharp. “It fills that gap between things we can know for sure and things that we have no way to prove.” 

In addition to recording local legends and myths, the markers will also be used to commemorate significant sites relating to our cultural folklore carriers—our storytellers and our songwriters—and the places their works were named after. 

“We’re also hoping that place names will be celebrated and explored,” said Sharp. The markers will share the stories of what these place names—in all of our ever-merging historical languages—mean and why they were so titled. Carencro, for example, will now be able to more loudly proclaim the fact that it was named after the magnificent carrion birds that used to roost above the city. 

Learn more about the Legends and Lore program at louisianastudies.louisiana.edu/node/29440.