Jennings

Jennings is a small city in and the parish seat of Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana, United States, near Lake Charles. The population was 10,986 at the 2000 census. Jennings is the principal city of the Jennings Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Jefferson Davis Parish. It is also part of the larger Lake Charles-Jennings Combined Statistical Area. Jennings McComb, for whom the town was named, was a contractor of the Southern Pacific Railroad. He built the Jennings depot on a divide peculiar to southwest Louisiana. The first settler was A. D. McFarlain, who came from St. Mary Parish, in 1881. This energetic young man was the community’s first rice grower, first merchant, first postmaster, first brick maker, and first...