Events in Jeanerette Louisiana

Looking for top-notch, inexpensive family entertainment, great food, a beautiful outdoor experience and some of the best music in the world? Two words: Louisiana festivals.

More than 400 Louisiana festivals occur each year – which makes it easy to see why Louisiana is often called the Festival Capital of America. We celebrate just about every crop harvested, every indigenous dish, every type of music that's played here – ranging from Cajun and zydeco to Delta blues, New Orleans jazz, Louisiana's own swamp pop, country, salsa and more. Excellent Louisiana food is a given at any festival. And as always, Louisiana festivals offer abundant opportunities for meeting new friends.

Themed festivals range from a Strawberry Festival in Ponchatoula and Tomato Festival in Chalmette to the great Festival International in Lafayette; from the big Contraband Days Pirate Festival in Lake Charles to the Holiday Festival of Lights in Natchitoches. From the Red River Revel in Shreveport to the Catfish Festival in Washington. Of course, you'll want to visit the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, or the big family-fun French Quarter Festival.

And for the biggest of them all? That's right, Louisiana is home to Mardi Gras! But that's another story – and a very large one across the state!

It’s nickname is "Sugar City," but Jeanerette derived its real name from John W. Jeanerette, a Carolina gentleman who came to Teche country in 1830 and purchased nearby Pine Grove Plantation. He offered a portion of his house to be used as an official mail depository for local inhabitants, and people sent mail to locals in care of John W. Jeanerette. When the “John W.” was later dropped, the name Jeanerette stuck.

Situated in Iberia Parish on the banks of beautiful Bayou Teche, Jeanerette was chartered as a town in 1878. Today, antebellum homes in and around the city stand as reminders of the boom years when the cypress lumber industry was a mainstay.

Sugarcane was key in the community’s economic growth during the past 200 years, and two sugar mills operate in the area. The manufacture of farm equipment for the cane industry also is important. Livestock, fish farming (hybrid striped bass), truck crops, rice, pecans, and fruits are among other local agricultural activities.

Jeanerette has a municipal airport home to a sizeable aviation community.

Jeanerette Museum, also called LeBeau Petit Musée, preserves the history of life in Bayou Teche. The sugarcane industry’s development over the last 200 years is explained in exhibits, video and an outdoor sugarcane patch.