�PLEASURE BEND TOWN HISTORY

Most people in St. John the Baptist Parish have never heard of Pleasure Bend. In fact, the only way to get there is to leave the parish, pass through Vacherie and South Vacherie, and keep going until one nearly runs out of road or you can launch a boat in the Edgard canal and follow the northwest shore of Lac� Des Allemands to get there.

For many years, it didn't really have a name, but the isolated community was spawned by generations of commercial fishermen, trappers and hunters who maintained camps in the area lining the northern shore of Lac Des Allemands.� Herman Granier, might be considered a founding father of the community, even though the isolated village is at least 150 years old.

Granier, 72, was born and raised in Pleasure Bend, and he traces his ancestry to his great-grandfather , Felix "Figaro" Granier, who first settled the area not long after the Civil War.� Born in 1848, the elder Granier built a hunting camp on the edge of Vacherie Canal near where it emptied into Lac des Allemands and later built a massive plantation style house.� Granier commented that his great-grandfather prided himself on being the only Republican around after the Civil War.

He married a Hotard from the St. John Parish community of Lucy (probably because that is where the family originated on the German Coast).� He built his 10 to 12 room house and began his family.� As the family grew, more rooms were added and the mushrooming house sprawled.� When his son, Joseph Granier married, he sired 13 children who all lived in the family house.� "It was like a commune, actually," Granier said.� "At one time, 42 people lived in the house."� Father and son made their living marketing the fish caught locally.� They would make the rounds of the local fishermen who took advantage of the lake's spawning grounds.� They would buy up the catch, sell the fish in Des Allemands in St. Charles Parish,� at the exit of the lake, and return with groceries and other needed supplies.� The local fishermen have used this means of obtaining their staples.

Commercial duck hunters serving the New Orleans market worked in the area, along with fishermen and trappers.� Joseph Granier was an unofficial mayor for the area , bringing in doctors and lawyers from New Orleans, as needed.� Within his own family, al money was held in commune and at the end of each year, all the money was divided among the children for purchases such as new clothes.

In those days, however, all the area open land was owned by the state and when a developer form New Orleans named Rosenberg bought the section containing the Pleasure Bend area in 1933, he ran smack into Joseph Granier.� Granier, a massive man well over six feet in height, with a swarthy complexion and a fiery temper, was faced with an impossible choice.� Rosenberg told the settler he now owned the land and the house that Felix Granier built.� He could simply leave and turn the house over to him, or he could pay a token rent to be allowed to stay.

For Granier, a very proud man, the choice was simple.� Under cloak of darkness, Granier and his sons transported lumber in skiffs across the Mississippi River, and built a new house on family owned land on Swimming Pool Lane in present day South Vacherie.� Then, with five gallons of kerosene, Granier torched the ancestral home to the ground, rather than turn it over to Rosenberg.

Felix Granier finally died in 1934 at the age of 96.� Joseph Granier died in 1943.� Mark Granier St., a commercial fisherman, was the next generation to lead the Pleasure Bend community.� Born in 1911, he later became a game warden for the area.�� After marrying� Antoinette Dempster, they produced their six children, again in Pleasure Bend.� She died comparatively young at the age of 52 in 1963.� He died at the age of 62 in 1968.

On his mother's side, Herman Granier recalled his maternal grandparents, Andrew and Azalle Folse Dempster.� They lived in a houseboat on the Vacherie Canal. He was a skilled carpenter, who built anything form houseboats to skiffs.� "He was tall and slim and she weighed 300 pounds," Herman remembered.� "He would load his 11 children on this skiff and row three miles to Golden Star Plantation in South Vacherie to go to church."� Sadly, Andrew Dempster died young, struck by lightning in 1934.

In the early 1960's Herman Granier built the Pleasure Bend dance hall on the site of his grandfather's garden, overlooking Lac des Allemands.� Together with Dennis Rotman of Manchac, they were commercial fishermen who decided to go into business, supplying beer, crabs and entertainment.� "Dennis suggested building a restaurant and dance hall,"  Herman recalled.�"We mad money from day one, until Betsy."� (Hurricane Betsy) Of course , the bingos and the illegal slot machines also kept the business thriving, he admitted.� However, Granier knew he had built correctly during Hurricane Betsy when, at the height of the storm , a two by bout slammed through the wall, forced by the 150 miles per hour winds.

His wife, Lydia Falgoust of Vacherie, has enlivened Granier's life.� Married for 53 years, they have three sons a daughter, 16 grandchildren and (at last count)� 12 great-grandchildren.� He served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theater and witnessed (from a distant escort ship) the Japanese surrender in Tokyo bay.

The couple married when he was 19 and she was 15.� "I went away and left a little girl and came back to find a woman," he commented.

Over the years, Herman also worked in the seafood business and as a deputy for three different St. John Parish Sheriffs, including Percy Hebert, Lester Millet and Lloyd B. Johnson. For most of that time, he was the only full time deputy on the West Bank.

For years, the village's isolation was helped with there only being and unpaved road into the are.� Finally, in 1988, the road was paved all the way to the village and the population is beginning to increase with newcomers seeking the pleasures of truly rural life.� Population is estimated at 350.� The school age children attend school in neighboring St. James Parish, riding St. John Parish buses.

Nowadays, his time is filled with family and with helping to launch the newest volunteer fire company in St. John Parish, where he is on the West Side VFD board.� Nearly 40 residents have become involved in starting the Pleasure Bend fire company and work is under way to purchase a site for a fire station, fire engine and community center.� Organizational meetings are held at his home and volunteers are fueled by his cookery skills.� The old Pleasure Bend lounge is now Fred Ponville's place.

And Pleasure Bend takes a new step toward its promising future.