The courir
Church Point started out as Plaquemine Brulée. Jesuit missionaries called its chapel the church at the point, and the name stuck in English; older residents still say Pointe de l'Église. It is rice and crawfish country. Acadia Parish planted more than 86,000 acres of rice in 2023, second in Louisiana.
The Church Point Saddle Tramp Riders Club, founded in 1961, runs the town's Courir de Mardi Gras on the Sunday before Fat Tuesday. Masked, costumed riders go from farm to farm. At each stop the captains ask permission, the riders chase a chicken and dance, and then they move on. The day ends with a parade through town and a shared pot of gumbo. The children have their own courir on the Saturday.
The family story goes that Elton Richard flipped a coin with Senator Paul Tate of Mamou to decide which town would run on Sunday and which on Tuesday. Church Point got Sunday. The traditional capuchon hats and screen masks are still made in town at Le Vieux Moulin.
A sausage and boudin town
Acadia Parish's Specialty Meats and Cracklin Trail lists four stops in Church Point: Richard's, Cajun Family Traditions, Keeper's Cajun Products and Vautrot's, between them making boudin, smoked sausage and cracklins. Richard's runs a USDA inspected plant on East Ebey Street.
Church Point also calls itself the Buggy Capital of the World, from the 1920s, when families drove a horse and buggy to church. The town still has a buggy route and the old hitching posts at Town Hall.
