Atchafalaya Heritage
Keel Boat Pass Baptist
Mission School / Church
The Baptist Mission School / Church work was directed toward settlers within the Basin.
The Baptist mission work was headed by a missionary named Ira Marks. The zeal and practicality of this activity, beginning around 1938, provided a school and Baptist conversions among the people living in the interior of the basin.
Ira Marks Atchafalaya Baptist Mission Founder/Minister
The work spearheaded by Ira Marks resulted in a school/church facility being erected first on Keep Boat pass. This was the first opportunity for children living in Houseboat communities in the interior of the Atchafalaya Basin to attend formal schooling, a process reminiscent of the Catholic Jesuit missionary work in other parts of the world.
During the week, school was conducted in the buildings and on the weekends church services were held.
Keel Boat pass was populated by both houseboats and bank residences.
One of the notable things the Baptists did was to literally put their message on the water. Much like the Catholics, ie, the Star of Sea Catholic Chapel boat of St. Joseph the Worker Church Parish 1936 - 1943). The Baptists realized they had to go where the people were, and those places were reachable only by boat. So Ira Marks and others built a two-story building on a motorized barge and called it The Little Brown Church. With this very mobile facility they conducted services and revivals in all over the southern Basin. Since the barge had engines it also had a generator to provide electricity, resulting in the church being so brightly lit at night that it is still remembered for that by the Basin residents who attended it.
As people moved out of the Basin and onto the levees or into nearby towns, the Keel Boat pass school was abandoned around 1953 -54.
On 5 9 2024 and more recently 6 16 2025 A group of us wanna be historians made a couple of trips into Basin to see if we could find the Old Keel Boat pass school house and mission church.
The 5 9 2024 we were accompanied by Jason Theriot, a full-fledged historian, Mr. Jim Delahoussaye, a Master Naturalist and a historian in his own right of the Atchafalaya Basin.
On the 6 16 2025, we were accompanied by Mr. Ory Guillory, whose family lived in their houseboat on Keel Boat Pass. Ory, who went to the Keel Boat mission school to the 7 grade.
The following pictures are from those two trips.
Field Trip 5 9 2024 in the Atchafalaya, Jim Delahoussaye, Cliff LeGrange, Jason Theriot
Field Trip 6 16 2025 Ory Guillory, Anderson Hebert & Cliff LeGrange
Sand Bars in Keel Boat Pass impede access to the Old School House only during annual high water flood pulse
View of Baptist Mission School c 1940’s along Keel Boat Pass - Screen Capture from Baptist College video
Screen Capture of the front view of Baptist School – Church mission; From The Video By LA. Baptist c 1940
Pictures of School / Church 2024 /2025
Deshotel Road / Slough 2025
Ory Guillory at the Schoolhouse view looking at the back of School
Ory Guillory a native of Bayou Pigeon, provided the information on the people who lived in houseboats along Keel Boat Pass between 1940’s - 1953. Ory said they walked along Keel Boat Pass to the schoolhouse and then crossed on a foot bridge built across Deshotel Road (slough). Sometimes the Dewey Burns family, which lived on Little Bayou Pigeon, would stop by and bring them in their putt-putt Gas boat.
Ory says there were 7 rows of desks, each row of desks was a grade. The school went to 7th grade. The teacher was Ms. Zora Miller.
They had a grocery boat that came by once a week. Mr. Robert Vilmonte was the owner.
Mr Vilmonte would sell groceries to people on the houseboats. Money was exchanged sometimes, but mostly it was a barter-type trade, fish for groceries. Ory said he remembers they were paid 1 Cent per pound for Gasper Goo.
Ory and his sister Geneieve went to the school there, and when his sister finished the 7th grade, she would cook meals for the kids at the school.
Ory says his parents moved their houseboat from Keel Boat Pass to Bayou Pigeon in 1953
Pictures of the Inside of the school house 5 9 2024
Religious traditions are an important part of the culture of the Atchafalaya Basin. The Baptist Mission School and Church on Keel Boat Pass deserve to be remembered.
