Alexandre Mouton House

The house went up around 1800. No one knows who built it. Twenty-one years later, Jean Mouton gave land for a church. Two years after that, he gave land for a courthouse. Those two parcels became Lafayette. The house stood before the city had a name. Jean Mouton's grandson Alexandre became Louisiana's first Democratic governor in 1843. His great-grandson Alfred commanded Confederate forces along Bayou Teche and was killed leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of Mansfield in 1864. A statue honoring Alfred stood downtown from 1922 until its removal in 2021. The Alexandre Mouton House is the oldest standing structure in the city. It's a museum now, holding Lafayette Parish history in the rooms that predate the parish itself. What you see is what was given first: the church lot, the courthouse square, the house that watched both happen.