Winn Parish, Cradle of Louisiana Politics

Winn Parish, Louisiana, is the county that produced Huey Long, and understanding the parish helps explain the man. Winn was unusual in the Louisiana of the late eighteen hundreds: a hill-country parish of small farmers, many of them Unionist during the Civil War, deeply skeptical of the Delta planters and New Orleans merchants who ran the state. It was a Populist stronghold in the eighteen nineties, a Socialist stronghold by nineteen twelve, when it gave Eugene Debs more than a third of its vote.

Huey Long was born here on August thirtieth, eighteen ninety-three, absorbed the local distrust of concentrated wealth, and eventually turned it into the most powerful political machine in Louisiana history. Winn Parish also produced his brother Earl, who served three separate terms as governor, and Oscar K. Allen, Long's ally and surrogate governor.

Few parishes or counties of its size can claim three governors. Winnfield, the parish seat, houses the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in the old railroad depot, a monument to a political tradition that was radical, effective, and complicated in equal measure.