Hoffpauir, Ellis, House

The Ellis Hoffpauir House is locally significant in the area of education as the home of Ellis Hoffpauir from its construction in 1905 until Hoffpauir's death in 1954 at the age of 82. A greatly respected friend of public education, Hoffpauir served on the parish school board for almost thirty-five years (1913-1932, 1938-54). He was elected president in 1947, after having served several years as vice president. The period of significance spans from the year Hoffpauir had the house built (1905) to the current fifty-year cutoff (1947).

The Hoffpauir name is well known in Acadia Parish, especially in Estherwood, where the Hoffpauirs are considered one of the founding families and various members have made contributions in various fields over the years. Ellis Hoffpauir moved to Estherwood in 1899 from nearby Lafayette Parish and was mentioned at the time of his death as being a pioneer in the settlement of the area. Estherwood, like the nearby parish seat of Crowley, did not exist until the railroad arrived in the 1880s. When Hoffpauir moved to Estherwood, it was a tiny rural hamlet with not even enough population to be incorporated as a village. This status was granted in 1901, and Ellis Hoffpauir soon became involved in local politics, serving two partial terms as mayor (1907 and 1909) and a full term from 1910-12. Like almost everyone else in the area, he was in the rice business.

It is, however, the field of education with which Hoffpauir's name is most closely linked. While his specific accomplishments are not known, it is clear that his name was synonymous with education and that he served on the school board during a period of great change and improvement as public education across Louisiana moved from one-room wood frame buildings to large, modern consolidated schools financed by parish-wide taxes. Generally speaking, public education in Louisiana did not make rapid strides until the early twentieth century. Various phenomena are generally regarded as milestones in any school system's development: for example, parish-wide taxes to support public education, the creation of high schools, and a new era of modern brick schools" (as they were termed at the time). Considerable advancement in these and other areas (for example, school consolidation) came during Hoffpauir's long tenure on the school board.

Although a parish-wide tax to support education (as opposed to taxes voted by wards and districts) had been proposed as early as 1907, it met with resistance from voters for several years, finally being accepted in 1919 and continued and increased in various elections thereafter as called by the school board. Successful tax elections and special bond issues in the teens and "20s made it possible to greatly improve the physical plant of Acadia Parish schools and to create high schools. In regard to the latter, there were no state-approved high schools in the parish prior to 1908, but by 1921, there were seven. In reference to the physical plant, Acadia Parish made the transition from frame school buildings (often of one or two rooms) to "modern” brick facilities -- a recognizable chapter in the history of public education in the state, with the latter universally by their very nature considered to be better. Building materials aside, these new public schools which appeared across Louisiana in the early twentieth century were much larger and better equipped, making it possible to separate students by grades and provide educational amenities such as science labs and the like. Acadia Parish's school building projects of the teens and 20s, financed locally, were supplemented by federal relief funds during the Depression.

That Hoffpauir was a noted figure in public education in Acadia Parish is borne out in commentary at the time of his death in 1954. The Crowley Daily Signal lamented his passing in an editorial. It began: "The field of public education has lost a pioneer, a champion, and a leader in the death of Ellis Hoffpauir of Estherwood." Mr. Hoffpauir continued the editorial, "devoted much of his time to the task of providing the facilities necessary for the education of all children of Acadia Parish. ... Mr. Hoffpauir lived to see small, poorly-equipped schools give way to modern buildings where instruction keeps pace with a changing world." As might be expected at the passing of a prominent individual, Hoffpauir's death was front page news in the Crowley paper, with the note that all schools in the parish would be closed for a day in his memory. The man who, according to a 1937 source, presented diplomas at the local grammar school and high school practically every year" in lived in Estherwood was suitably honored.