Episode 174: A Department Store, a Sugar Refinery and the Man Who Founded Both

Louisiana Insider

Just having survived in New Orleans as a poor French Jewish immigrant was a major accomplishment for young Leon Godchaux. But having lived a life in his adopted city where he eventually opened his own department store, mastered the use of the newly-invented sewing machine for better clothes quality and then to establish a major sugar refinery upriver from New Orleans – which would be a model or the rest of the sugar industry – was a life well lived.

Peter M. Wolf, the author of “Sugar King: Leon Godchaux: A New Orleans Legend; His Creole Slave and His Jewish Roots,” joins Louisiana Life Executive Editor Errol Laborde, along with producer Kelly Massicot, to discuss the history of an amazing man who also secretly purchased a Creole slave in order to liberate him, and would later become a business partner.

Wolf also reveals what happened to the engine for Godchaux's train that was used to haul items throughout the refinery. Hint: In was relocated to a major theme park.