Versailles, Louisiana
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Versailles is a place in Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana. It is along the East Bank of the Mississippi River, about 3 & 1/2 miles below the lower limit of New Orleans.
While for governmental and postal address purposes, the community is considered to be part of Chalmette (and by some designations, in part also into neighboring Meraux, the name "Versailles" as a place designation continues in local use.
[edit] History
Versailles was founded by plantation owner Peter De La Ronde in the second half of the 1810s. De La Ronde made plans to lay out Versailles along the River, and cut a barge canal through some dozen miles of swamp to the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, where he would build another town, called "Paris". (These communities were to be named for the famous Paris and Versailles in France.) De La Ronde proclaimed that his Versailles would soon overtake New Orleans in size and importance. Such major development never happened. Versailles remained just a small town for the rest of the 19th century, the proposed Paris on the Lakefront never developed, and no navigable canal linked the River and the Lake (until the Industrial Canal was built in New Orleans in the 20th Century).
De La Ronde's road fared better; his path through the swamps developed into a major artery, and Paris Road remains the furthest down-river route connecting the River with the Lake in the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area.
In the last quarter of the 20th century, a number of immigrants from Vietnam settled in Versailles, many working in the shrimp boat industry.
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