La Cathédrale St-Jean

Lafayette, LA

This great live oak had already stood for roughly three centuries by 1800, when the surrounding land was given to the Catholic Church in the young settlement that would become Lafayette. Its estimated age of nearly 500 years means it took root long before French and Spanish colonists reached the bayou country of south Louisiana, quietly outliving the empires that traded the region back and forth. Heritage live oaks like this one became gathering points and landmarks for the Acadian and Creole communities who settled Acadiana.

Natchez, MS

In 1837 Natchez was named the seat of the new Roman Catholic diocese covering Mississippi, and in 1842 Bishop J. M. Chanche began building this church—the only one in the state actually constructed as a cathedral. Rising in a bustling antebellum river town, it reflected the growing Catholic presence in the Deep South.

Orange, TX

Born in Louisiana in 1790 and a veteran of the War of 1812, John Harmon moved his family west in search of new land, settling along the Sabine River by 1826. In an extraordinary feat of frontier determination, he lashed together a massive raft of cypress logs to ferry his house, wagon, oxen, livestock, tools, and family to the site of present-day Orange on New Year's Day 1828. His arrival marked the beginning of permanent settlement there, and he went on to work as a saddler and civic leader.

Orange, TX

A War of 1812 veteran born in Georgia in 1796, George Alexander Pattillo migrated to southeast Texas in the early 1830s and threw himself into the region's revolutionary politics, serving on a Committee of Correspondence and the provisional government's General Council. He aided the Texas Army during the 1836 revolution, arriving at San Jacinto the day after the battle, and was tasked by President David G. Burnet with organizing Jefferson County. He later served in the Republic of Texas Congress, championed annexation, and became Orange County's first judge in 1852.