WEST FELICIANA HISTORY
Blissful views, rich history, and good people...
Situated where the rugged Tunica Hills skirt the Mississippi River, St. Francisville began as a part of Spanish West Florida in the early 1800s. The first settlers were adventurous Anglos who rebelled against Spain, established a short-lived independent republic, stopped the Civil War to bury a Union officer, and planted vast acres of indigo, cotton, and sugar cane.
In the 1900s, St. Francisville became the cultural and commercial center of the surrounding plantation country.
Today, overlooking the river from atop a high, narrow ridge "two miles long and two yards wide," it remains the West Feliciana parish seat. Tourists visit its picturesque downtown, a lively Main Street Community and National Register Historic District.
The abounding landscape, gardens and historical antebellum homes and quaint shops draw tourists year-round, and the unique hilly terrain provides unsurpassed recreational opportunities for hiking, bicycling, birding, hunting, and nature studies and restaurants with casual to fine-dining eating.
Ever since John James Audubon painted dozens of birds in West Feliciana, 1821, artists, writers, and other visitors have found inspiration in this scenic, unspoiled spot.
In St. Francisville today, moss-draped live oaks overhang roadways and many of the early buildings have been restored in a downtown district that is listed in its entirety in the National Register of Historic Places.