Gueydan is a town in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,598 at the 2000 United States Census. It is part of the Abbeville, Louisiana Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History
In the early 1860s, Jean Pierre Gueydan, the founder of the town, lived in Abbeville, Louisiana, about 30 miles east of present day Gueydan. He often came to the future town site to hunt deer, ducks, geese, pheasant, cache-cache (Jack Snipe), Scolopacidae, and other game. The area was in reality a hunter's paradise. Game and fish were boundless.

Forty thousand acres (160 km²) of land described by surveyors as'sea...

Gueydan is a town in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,598 at the 2000 United States Census. It is part of the Abbeville, Louisiana Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History
In the early 1860s, Jean Pierre Gueydan, the founder of the town, lived in Abbeville, Louisiana, about 30 miles east of present day Gueydan. He often came to the future town site to hunt deer, ducks, geese, pheasant, cache-cache (Jack Snipe), Scolopacidae, and other game. The area was in reality a hunter's paradise. Game and fish were boundless.

Forty thousand acres (160 km²) of land described by surveyors as'sea marsh, unfit for cultivation'was purchased by Jean Pierre and Francois Gueydan in 1884 for twelve and one-half cents per acre. By 1896 a small portion of their purchase became known as the'Gueydan Pasture'. It was later chartered as a village when the population reached 250. Jean Pierre was the official founder of Gueydan as he had purchased his brother's landholdings. In 1902, the settlement became the town of Gueydan.

Realizing the importance of a railroad to the rice farmers, Mr. 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 thereafter, the first property lots were offered for sale. Settlers began to arrive from other parts of the state and the rest of the country.

The very first irrigation pump in the state of Louisiana was built nearby at Primeaux landing. This enabled water to be pumped to irrigate thousands of acres of rice helping to promote this area into the rice growing power it was soon to be.