We’re in High Cotton

Evangeline Parish has a long history with cotton. Cotton was originally cultivated in Louisiana as early as 1729, and the fiber was used for spinning and weaving. With the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became a cash crop and was the only major cash crop in the South until 1920.

Evangeline Parish was the first parish in the South where all cotton farmers had planted and raised one variety of cotton, namely Delta and Pine Land Cotton. As a result, when civic leaders decided to start a festival in the early 1950’s, they decided to call it, “The Cotton Festival.” The Cotton Festival is held in Ville Platte every year on the 6th weekend after Labor Day.

Over time, insects, flood, drought, international production and environmental regulation have caused farmers to move to other crops.

But for those of us who grew up in this area, cotton is positively nostalgic. When I was growing up, the “Cotton Pickers” were a group of girls and women, who were selected after a rigorous “Tryout” process. They sang and danced and were designated as the official entertainers of the festival and I so wanted to be one of them. But alas, I was not blessed with rhythm or a singing voice and I had to settle for watching them perform.

I recall driving through the countryside with my grandparents as they commented on the health of lack thereof of that year’s crop. I have been told that the town of Whiteville was named such because the cotton fields made the whole place look white when the cotton bolls bloomed.

Because of the Gumbo Gals nostalgia for cotton, we enjoy carrying products, such as paintings, pillows, and other personal and home accents, that remind of us our childhood “in high cotton.”

Aubrey “in high cotton”