Pointe Farm Post Office History

From the earliest days, the area along the left and right descending banks of Bayou Terrebonne from, Klondyke to the Gulf of Mexico was called le Terrebonne or “The Terrebonne.” It was not until 1845, a post office was established as a money order registry office at Pointe Farm but it is unknown what name the station used other than Pointe Farm. Peter P. Flynn and Eugene A. Fields are listed as the post masters. This post office closed on November 13, 1876. On July 22, 1885, a post office was re-established and carried the name of Montegut. The first postmaster was James D. Wilson, who was a staff member at Lower Terrebonne Refinery. Henry Klingman was named postmaster in 1899. The post office was located in the Klingman Store. Historically, local communities suggested the name for their Post Offices, subject to the approval of the Post Office Department. The sources of some Post Office names are lost to history; there are no postal records on name origins . Instructions in the 1880s addressed this problem, specifying short names for offices, which would “not resemble the name of any other post office in the United States.” In the 1890s, the instructions were relaxed, calling for names dissimilar to “any other post office in the State. Between 1850 and 1890, the number of Post Offices increased from 18,417 to 62,401. The actual documents for naming

Gabriel “Gabe” Montegut in 1885. Nevertheless, the mystery continues today, because he never owned property in leTerrebonne, worked in the community nor had any relatives in the area. “One story is that he was a good guy, very nice and helpful as a clerk/banker in Houma.” He lived in the area known as Bayou Cane, near the existing Terrebonne High School at 7318 Main Street. The school board bought a piece of land of about 275’ along Main Street just north of the city from Paul Adam on June 14, 1938. Mr. Adam had acquired the land from the estate of Gabriel Montegut in