Right on Main Street in Ville Platte

Main Street is the lifeline of any city in America. It is the source that pumps out business to the rest of the city. If it dries up, then the city will follow suit.
Ville Platte City Councilman Mike Perron agreed when he said, “Main Street to me is the whole life of the city.” He added, “That’s where all the memories are. To me that is the whole heart of Ville Platte right there, and I would do anything to get it back like it was.”
Perron, who was born in 1951, spent most of his adult life cutting out old newspaper clippings of people, places, and things in Ville Platte. He keeps these clippings in scrapbooks and recently started sharing some of them on social media.
“I bring back these memories because the people my age love it,” he said. “They forget about it, but when I come across these pictures, they like it because it refreshes their memories. It’s good stuff to talk about it besides the stuff that’s going on today.”
He sat down recently in his kitchen and reminisced about growing up in Ville Platte and about the businesses on Main Street. “I always say I lived in the best years in the 1950s and 1960s,” he commented. “We had Bobby’s Drive-in, Red and Dot’s, and Frosty’s. We’d go from drive-in to drive-in and eat chili pies on the hood.”
Another hot gathering spot on Main Street was Dup’s Lounge which is located across from the current Doucet’s Barber Shop. “That’s where a lot of teenagers hung out because in those days they weren’t as strict on the laws. Most people would park in the back instead of being on Main Street. It was an old gravel lot, and people would just walk through the back door. It had some pool tables and a place to dance. They had a bar and some tables to sit and visit with whomever you wanted. It was a good quiet place.”
Main Street also had an area of clubs with a more checkered reputation that was known as Little Mexico. “That whole area was a bunch of bars and saloons,” Perron said. “They called it Little Mexico because things were kind of rough there. It was kind of wild in those days.”
There were more family friendly spots on Main Street besides the rough and rowdy saloons of Little Mexico. There were places like the Jan Theater and the Platte Theater. “I worked at the Platte Theater when I was about 14-years-old,” said Perron. “I worked upstairs in the balcony because that’s where you’d start learning up there. The restroom was outside against Stella’s Studio building, so we had to staple people’s shirts so that they could go out and come back in. That’s how we would tell if they had already paid.”
Ville Platte during the same time had its fair share of five-and-dime stores on Main Street like J. W. Lowe’s and Wagley’s. There was also Peanut’s Cheap Store which is the old Canal Station. According to Perron, “they were the first ones in Ville Platte to sell crawfish in the early 50s. It wasn’t a big deal, and they went and bought crawfish anyway. It was slow, but it ended up doing well.”
Other memorable stores across the street from each other on Main Street were G. Ardoin’s and Evangeline Furniture. “G. Ardoin’s was one of the best stores as far as having anything you needed,” Perron explained. “They even had aluminum boats and Evinrude and Elgin boat motors. They had a grocery store with everything you needed. You’d go into the men’s department and the ladies’ department, and then they had a hardware department which was by the grocery store. They had appliances and refrigerators. That was a big to-do in those days.”
“Across the street used to be a lounge at one time,” Perron continued. “Then Mr. Raymond took it over and opened a furniture store, and he did well.”
Perron, who was a volunteer fireman for around 30 years, then described the day when the two businesses went up in flames. “The fire started as an electrical fire in a room in Evangeline Furniture,” he stated. “They didn’t catch it right away, and once it started in the walls it got into the attic. The wood was so old, and the fire just took off.”
“I was at lunch that day at noon when they called that Evangeline Furniture was on fire,” Perron continued. “The flames were everywhere. We set up on Main Street with our backs to G. Ardoin’s fighting that thing, but it was so hot. I had my coat and my helmet on, and my jacket was smoking hot. We were burning up ourselves, and the hoses were smoking. That’s how hot it was, and so we moved back further and further as it got worse.”
He then recalled what happened as the fire moved across the street to where the mannequins were in the window of G. Ardoin’s. “Then all of a sudden it got so hot that it shattered that glass,” Perron explained. “When it shattered that glass, the vacuum from the air conditioner sucked it through the building. The clothes and everything caught fire right there in no time. We turned around right there and called every fire department that we could think of.”
Mike Perron now sees other businesses on Main Street drying up and fading into the past like G. Ardoin’s and Evangeline Furniture. He also proposed an idea as city councilman to bring it back to its former glory. “What’s happening now is a lot of people are building out of town, so we have a lot of abandoned places right now,” he explained. “My plan as a city councilman when we get through with this water project is to apply for a grant and repaint all the buildings on Main Street to make them look nice and neat.”
He then acknowledged the need to preserve Main Street and its history. “It’s very important,” he opined. “I would like to preserve it, and I’d like to bring it back to where it was. Once we make it look nice and attractive, I think people would come back and start soliciting the businesses again. As long as I’m councilman, I’ll keep pushing for it. I don’t know if I’ll get it, but I’ll work hard on it.”