Gueydan, LA
| Town of Gueydan | |
| Town | |
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| Motto: "Duck Capital of America" | |
| Country | United States |
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| State | Louisiana |
| Parish | Vermilion |
| Elevation | 7 ft (2.1 m) |
| Coordinates | 30°01′38″N 92°30′27″W / 30.02722°N 92.50750°WCoordinates: 30°01′38″N 92°30′27″W / 30.02722°N 92.50750°W |
| Area | 0.9 sq mi (2.3 km2) |
| - land | 0.9 sq mi (2 km2) |
| - water | 0.0 sq mi (0 km2), 0% |
| Population | 1,598 (2000) |
| Density | 1,784.9/sq mi (689.2/km2) |
| Timezone | CST (UTC-6) |
| - summer (DST) | CDT (UTC-5) |
| Area code | 337 |
  Location of Gueydan in Louisiana
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 Location of Louisiana in the United States
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| Website: The Town of Gueydan, Louisiana | |
Gueydan (local pronunciation [ge(ɪ)dɔ̃]) is a town in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,598 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Abbeville Micropolitan Statistical Area.
For thousands of years, indigenous peoples lived along the waterways of Louisiana. They were able to hunt plentiful game and harvest fish from the rivers. In historic times, this area was inhabited by the Attakapa and Chitimacha.
In the early 1860s, Jean Pierre Gueydan, the founder of the European-American town, lived in Abbeville, Louisiana, about 30 miles east of present-day Gueydan. As had the Attapaka and earlier American Indian tribes, he often came to this area to hunt deer, ducks, geese, pheasant, cache-cache (jack snipe), papabottes, and other game. The area was a hunter's paradise.
In 1884 the brothers Jean-Pierre and François Gueydan purchased forty thousand acres (160 km2) of land described by surveyors as "sea marsh, unfit for cultivation", for twelve and one-half cents per acre. By 1896 a small portion of their purchase became known as the "Gueydan Pasture". It was chartered as a village when the population reached 250. Jean Pierre was considered the official founder of Gueydan, as by then he had purchased his brother's landholdings. In 1902, the settlement became the town of Gueydan. Many residents were involved in the cultivation of rice along the waterways, as the area's most important commodity crop.
Realizing the importance of a railroad to the rice farmers, Gueydan donated a section of land and extensive right-of-way to induce the Southern Pacific Railroad to build a branch line from Midland, Louisiana. Shortly after, he offered the first property lots for sale. Settlers began to arrive from other parts of the state and the rest of the country.
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