Independence, Louisiana

This little Tangipahoa Parish town started life with the unlikely name Uncle Sam, and it kept that name for years. In the eighteen nineties, Sicilian immigrants began arriving to pick strawberries. Within a few years many had saved enough to buy their own small farms.

Independence became a major strawberry shipping point, and Italians and their children grew to be a large share of the population. They built businesses, a power plant, and farmers' cooperatives, and helped make Louisiana a leading strawberry-producing state. The town's name was changed to Independence, a nod, some say, to the spirit those immigrant families brought with them.