By james art 
ADDIS, La. (WAFB) – Trains have been rolling through the small town of Addis in West Baton Rouge Parish since the 1880s. But for its first few decades, the city had a different name, Baton Rouge Junction.
“It was because to go west, people from Baton Rouge had to come here to catch the trains,” Jocelyn Michand Gautreau said.
In 1915 Baton Rouge Junction gets a new name.
“And they changed it to Addis because it was too confusing for people who don’t know where Baton Rouge Junction branches off from Baton Rouge,” Gautreau said.
John Wesley Addis was the superintendent of the Texas and Pacific Railroad.
When I travel around Louisiana, I pass through these small towns and I often wonder why this town is where it is? Why is Addis here?
“Well, it started on the river and it’s here because of the railroad,” Gautreau said.
Gauthreaux is one of the volunteers who researched the town’s history, collected artifacts and opened a museum in a century-old bank building. Even the building has a history,
“But just seven years after it was built, it closed because they had the Great Depression plus a rail strike,” Gautreau said.
The building later served as a post office and grocery store. Ella Thibodeau’s father worked for the local railroad.
“They were going to inspect the railroad. They would pull out the old links that needed to be replaced. It had to be done by hand,” Thibodeau said.
Sleepy stations would have such a clock, and railroad workers like Thibodaux’s dad would carry the pocket watch.
“Every morning. They had to synchronize that clock with the clock at the depot, and that was so they could get what they call a schedule, so they knew when those trains were coming through, they had to get off that track,” Thibodeau said.
You can see an old conductor’s hat, train tickets, ticket stub and items used to serve passengers. There are old phones before the devices fit in your pocket. And the old telephones replaced the railway telegraph. Outside the city park is a caboose, something else the railroads no longer use. The museum has a collection of local military veterans, old household items and clothing, schools that are long gone, and radio stations that were once the center of family entertainment. It’s quite a collection for a group of volunteers who value their history.
“You may not have much interest now, but down the road someone will want to know something about their grandparents that they didn’t know.” And we want to keep all those memories here,” Thibodeau said.
And today. You can still see the railway activity in front of the Addis Museum. The city’s history is still an important part of its future.
More information about the Addis Train Museum can be found on the Heart of Louisiana website.
Click here To report a typo. Please include the title.
Click here To subscribe to our WAFB 9 News Daily Digest and Breaking News Alerts delivered straight to your inbox.
Copyright 2025 WAFB. All rights reserved.