LUMBER & BUILDING MATERIALS

Des Allemands, LA

Des Allemands sits where Bayou des Allemands, Highway 90, and the railroad meet,

with the community divided between St. Charles and Lafourche parishes. Long

before it became known for catfish, the town grew around timber, agriculture,

water travel, and the trains that carried goods between local settlements and larger markets.

That working history still fits the town today. Homes, camps, sheds, docks, workshops,

and family property all need regular upkeep in a place surrounded by

water, swamp, and South Louisiana weather. Frost Lumber is a direct trip to

Thibodaux, with lumber, roofing, siding, hardware, paint supplies, and the

building materials needed for repairs, additions, and everyday projects.

Des Allemands may be best known as the Catfish Capital of the Universe, but it has

always been more than a fishing town. It is a place shaped by the bayou,

the railroad, generations of working families, and the practical knowledge

required to maintain what they built.

A Lil’ Lagniappe...

This panoramic photograph, taken by Charles L. Franck in August 1921, shows the

sugarcane fields of the Federal Food Company in Des Allemands. The long rows of

cane reveal a side of the town’s history that is often overshadowed by its later

reputation for fishing and catfish.

Agriculture was only one part of a community connected by rail, bayou, and timber.

Freight boats carried merchandise from arriving trains and returned with local

produce, while nearby lumber operations drew cypress from the surrounding

swamps. Des Allemands developed where several forms of work and transportation

met, giving the town an identity tied as much to land and timber as to water.

The cane fields in this photograph are long gone, but they preserve a time

when the land around Des Allemands fed local families, supported industry, and helped

shape the town before catfish became its most famous calling card.

The crops changed. The town didn’t stop knowing how to live off the land and water.