St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church

The altar dome is an overturned sugar kettle. The altar itself is covered in clam shells pulled from the Mississippi. The Lourdes Grotto, built in 1876 and believed among the first in America, is made from bagasse — charred sugarcane residue left after the juice is pressed. The parish built what it could from what the river and the fields gave it. St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church holds the oldest working pipe organ in Louisiana, a Henry Erben instrument from 1857, still in its original location. The town of Convent takes its name from the Marist priests who built here in the 1820s. The church sits on River Road in St. James Parish and is open for visiting.