Evangeline Maid rotating bread loaf sign

Lafayette, Louisiana, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A three-dimensional billboard shaped like a rotating loaf of Evangeline Maid bread, unveiled in 1960, was reported by The Advocate in August 2024 to be repainted and still spinning outside the Evangeline Maid bakery at West Simcoe and South Bienville Streets in Lafayette, Louisiana.

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Evangeline Maid rotating bread loaf sign

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Site-level location · 30.2278° N, 92.0225° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Outside the Evangeline Maid bakery in Lafayette, a three-dimensional billboard in the shape of a loaf of bread rotated on its mount, and in August 2024 it was still turning. Writing for 64 Parishes in 2020, Rien Fertel called it a local landmark that most native Lafayettiens would agree is rivaled only by the Cajundome.

The loaf advertises Evangeline Maid, the Acadiana bread brand. According to Fertel, Joseph Huval began baking in 1919 in Youngsville, using a fifty-dollar bonus from his First World War army service, and sold his Mother's Bread door to door from a Model T. The Advocate reports that the business moved to Lafayette in 1926 and that the Evangeline Maid trademark dates from 1937, with Huval's daughter Mary Helen the inspiration for the logo. Fertel adds that the bakery moved a block east along Simcoe Street that year and that its loaves took the name as a nod to the Evangeline poem.

The company unveiled the rotating sign in 1960, a date given by both Fertel and The Advocate. Louisiana Cookin' reports that Flowers Foods acquired the business in 1976, and The Advocate reported in 2024 that Evangeline Maid bread was still baked there; Fertel was shown a production line turning out thousands of loaves an hour.

In August 2024 The Advocate reported that the sign had been repainted and still spins outside the bakery, at the corner of West Simcoe and South Bienville Streets. The same article says artist Dirk Guidry painted a mural directly across from it in 2019, showing Huval, the brand's nostalgia and the musician Buckwheat Zydeco.

The sign is seen from the street at that corner, so a short stop is enough.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A bread-loaf billboard that rotated on its mount outside a working bakery; The Advocate reported in August 2024 that it had been repainted and still spun. A mural painted in 2019 was described as directly across from it.

ACCESS

At the corner of West Simcoe and South Bienville Streets in Lafayette, outside the Evangeline Maid bakery. The sign is seen from the street; the bakery behind it is a working commercial plant.

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