to
Update
is a city in and the parish seat of Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States, 150 miles (241 km) west of New Orleans. The population was 11,887 at the 2000 census. Abbeville is in the heart of "Cajun Country," and is home to many restaurants that specialize in the authentic tastes of the region.
Abbeville is the principal city of the Abbeville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Vermilion Parish. It is also part of the larger Lafayette–Acadiana Combined Statistical Area.
The land that was to become Abbeville was purchased by founding father Père Antoine Désiré Mégret (Père is French for 'Father'), Capuchin missionary, on July 25, 1843 for $900. Megret named the town after his home in France. There were two people living on the land at that time, Joseph LeBlanc and his wife Isabelle Broussard, whose former home Father Megret converted into a chapel. The chapel burned in 1854, and St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church now stands at the same location.
Father Megret modeled his original plan for the village after a French Provincial village. In a map he made in 1846, the town was 38 to in size. It was bounded on the north by St. Victor Boulevard, on the south by Lafayette Boulevard, on the east by "the sisters of Charity," and on the west by Bayou Vermilion. At this point in time the town was called “Abbville”. It is not clear exactly when or why the transition to "Abbeville" took place. There were two theories as to why this name was chosen. One is that it was a combination of "Abbe" for Abbé Mégret and "ville" for town — thus Abbé's town. The other is that it was named for Abbeville, France, which some believed to have been the birthplace of Père Mégret. Some support for the second theory could be found in the fact that the town in France is pronounced "Abbville" by the French. However, in 1995, Fr. Jean Desobry discovered in the diocesan archives of Amiens the dossier of Fr. Antoine Jacques Désiré Mégret, who was born on May 23, 1797 at Abbeville
and was to become founder of Abbeville in Louisiana. He also found that on February 12, 1844, the pastor gave to his American town the name of the town of his birth.
At the center of downtown is Magdalen Square, which is a beautiful town square accented by huge oak trees, a fountain, and gazebo. Today, a statue stands in Magdalen Square in memorial to Father Megret.
In 1890, 637 people lived in Abbeville; in 1900, 1,536; in 1910, 2,907; and in 1940, Abbeville was the home of 6,672 occupants. In 1990, 11,187 people lived in Abbeville.