| DeQuincy, Louisiana | |
| Settlement Type: | City |
| Image Map1: | Louisiana in United States (US48).svg |
| Map Caption1: | Location of Louisiana in the United States |
| Coordinates: | 30.4508°N -93.4356°W |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | United States |
| Subdivision Type1: | State |
| Subdivision Type2: | Parish |
| Subdivision Name1: | Louisiana |
| Subdivision Name2: | Calcasieu |
| Established Title: | Founded |
| Leader Title: | Mayor |
| Leader Name: | Riley Smith (R) (succeeding Lawrence Henagan) (D) |
| Unit Pref: | Imperial |
| Area Footnotes: | [1] |
| Area Total Km2: | 8.27 |
| Area Total Sq Mi: | 3.19 |
| Area Land Km2: | 8.27 |
| Area Land Sq Mi: | 3.19 |
| Area Water Km2: | 0.00 |
| Area Water Sq Mi: | 0.00 |
| Elevation Ft: | 79 |
| Population Total: | 3144 |
| Population As Of: | 2020 |
| Population Density Km2: | 380.27 |
| Population Density Sq Mi: | 984.96 |
| Timezone1: | CST |
| Utc Offset1: | -6 |
| Timezone1 Dst: | CDT |
| Utc Offset1 Dst: | -5 |
| Postal Code Type: | ZIP code |
| Postal Code: | 70633[2] |
| Area Code: | 337 |
| Blank Name: | FIPS code |
| Blank Info: | 22-20575 |
| Blank2 Name Sec2: | Wikimedia Commons |
DeQuincy is the northernmost city in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 3,235 at the 2010 census.[3] DeQuincy is part of the Lake Charles metropolitan statistical area.
DeQuincy was founded in 1897 as a railroad town with the Calcasieu, Vernon & Shreveport Railway Company (CV&S) having been completed and Arthur Stilwell's Kansas City, Shreveport & Gulf Railway Company (KCS&G), that was owned by the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad (KCP&G), completed in 1897.[4]
On 8 March 1944, two Air Force aircraft from nearby Barksdale Air Force Base collided overhead killing seven people.[5]
DeQuincy is located in northern Calcasieu Parish at (30.450915, -93.435613).[6] Louisiana Highways 12 and 27 pass through the center of town: LA 12 leads east to Kinder and southwest to Deweyville, Texas, while LA 27 leads north to DeRidder and south to Sulphur, 9miles west of Lake Charles.
According to the United States Census Bureau, DeQuincy has a total area of 8.2km2, all land.[3]
| Number | Percentage | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| White (non-Hispanic) | 2,368 | 75.32% | |
| Black or African American (non-Hispanic) | 544 | 17.3% | |
| Native American | 26 | 0.83% | |
| Asian | 8 | 0.25% | |
| Pacific Islander | 1 | 0.03% | |
| Other/Mixed | 119 | 3.78% | |
| Hispanic or Latino | 78 | 2.48% |
DeQuincy was founded as a railroad settlement, and the Kansas City Southern and Union Pacific railroads remain principal employers for area citizens.
The timber industry has long been a vital part of the local economy. DeQuincy is home to Temple-Inland's Southwest Louisiana Lumber Operation.
The DeQuincy Industrial Airpark houses facilities for Thermoplastic Services, Recycle Inc., United Oilfield Services, and Paragon Plastic Sheet. In 2002, Calgon Carbon Corporation planned to construct a carbon reactivation plant in the airpark, though those plans have been delayed due to environmental concerns.
The former Grand Avenue High School was the site of the highest scoring boys high school basketball game on January 29, 1964, when Grand Avenue beat Cameron, Louisiana's Audrey Memorial High School by a score of 211 to 29.[7] [8] [9]
The United States Postal Service operates the DeQuincy Post Office.[10]
The Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections formerly operated the C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in unincorporated Beauregard Parish, about 3miles north of DeQuincy.[11] The facility closed in November 2012
Calcasieu Parish Public Schools operates public schools:
The town has been the subject of numerous hoaxes by satirical writer Paul Horner, widely spread on the Internet. The hoaxes claim the town enacted bizarre legislation such as banning those of Korean descent, issuing handguns to school children, permitting bigamy, banning twerking, and the city being completely eradicated by zombies on bath salts.[12]
DeQuincy Mayor Lawrence Henagan, a Democrat,[13] was falsely targeted in 2016 by an Internet hoax[14] that he had jailed a volunteer fire chief for thirty days and then dismissed the man after the chief had prayed at the scene of a fire. The story identified the mayor as "Lawana Jones, an African-American atheist" and the fire chief as "39-year-old Ronnie Edwards." Henagan, the chairman of the deacon board at the First Baptist Church of DeQuincy, said that the chief is free to pray while firefighting. Henagan said he would join the fire chief in prayer. Henagan said that he has no knowledge why he was singled out for a fake news article but noted that he could take no legal action because the reports used fictitious names.[15]