Franklin: Louisiana's Sugar Port on the Teche

Franklin, the seat of Saint Mary Parish in south Louisiana, was founded in eighteen oh eight as Carlin's Settlement and named for Benjamin Franklin before becoming the first incorporated town in the parish in eighteen twenty. It sat at the center of one of Louisiana's most productive sugar regions, and by eighteen forty Saint Mary Parish ranked among the state's top shippers of cane sugar. At its peak Franklin was the largest steamboat port on Bayou Teche, loading hogsheads of sugar bound for New Orleans. More than four hundred structures from the antebellum and Victorian eras remain standing in the historic district, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen eighty-two.