Check Out How Lafayette Looked 40 Years Ago

Just the other day, some of our colleagues in Lake Charles posted a video showing what their city looked like 40 years ago. That got us thinking: Are there any videos online that show Lafayette as it was back in the day?

It didn't take us long to find out the answer is "yes."

It turns out that the Lake Charles clip was a documentary produced by Louisiana Public Broadcasting to mark the network's arrival into that city. LPB produced a similar documentary for Lafayette to celebrate its entry into that market. With a quick Google search, we found that Lafayette documentary.

Former KATC newsman Jack Frost narrates the half-hour video, which gives a quick overview of the city's history, the city's economy at the time, and some of the attractions Lafayette had in 1981. Most of the venues shown on camera are still around; others, not so much. You'll catch glimpses of the Northgate Mall, the Acadiana Mall, the Heymann Center (then, the Lafayette Municipal Auditorium), the old Evangeline Downs, Jacob's and Toby's restaurants at the Four Corners, Girard Park, and many other landmarks. Two of the men seen in this documentary, Frost and former city council president Dub Hudson, died earlier this year. Former mayor Dud Lastrapes, Former state representative and former KPEL/KTDY owner Ron Gomez, and former Evangeline Downs general manager Charles Ashy, Sr., are still around and are fountains of knowledge about this city's history.

The YouTube version of the video is terribly out of sync because either YouTube or LPB edited out some of the music originally included in the documentary. If you want to see the unadulterated version of the program, click here, but before you do, keep scrolling to see comparisons of Lafayette then and now.