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History · Morse

Morse’s post office opened in 1900

Most of Morse was built recently: 6% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1990. Below: maps from 1946 on and the census since 1910.

1900first post office
0on the National Register
6%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Morse began

When was Morse founded?

1900

The Morse post office opened in 1900, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Lorna (1898), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

First census: 237 in 19102020 census: 599126 years
Founding year: the first Morse post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Morse’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Morse are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Boom and bustPeaked at 835 in 1980; 599 people lived here in 2020.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Morse’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Morse’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
People over time

Morse, census by census

0200400600800192019401960198020002020Peak: 835

Peaked at 835 in 1980; 599 people lived here in 2020.

12 censuses, 1910–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Morse’s Wikipedia page.

The story so far

Morse, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Morse yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Morse is a village in Acadia Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2020 census, Morse had a population of 599. It is part of the Crowley Micropolitan Statistical Area. Laid out in 1898 on land owned by J. M. Crabtree, Morse was settled by farmers from Illinois and Iowa and incorporated as a village in 1906. The Southern Pacific Railroad had built a line here in 1895 connecting Midland and Gueydan and named it Morse Station after the railroad's New Orleans–based passenger agent, Col. Samuel Finley Breese Morse, a cousin of the inventor of the telegraph. Morse had promoted immigration efforts targeting the area.

Its first post office opened in 1900. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 812 to 599 (-26%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

Timeline

Morse, 1898 to 1980

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1898Post officeThe Lorna post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1900Post officeThe Lorna post office closes
  5. 1900Post officeThe Morse post office opens
  6. 1946On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  7. 1980CensusPopulation peaks at 835
By decade

Morse, decade by decade

Today1 recent
LAMap-doton-Morse2004LAMap-doton-Morse
On the map

Morse on the map, 1946 to 1983

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Morse. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Morse on the 1946 USGS mapMorse on the 1954 USGS mapMorse on the 1983 USGS map1946Morse sheet · 1:31,680

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Morse.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices

Morse’s post office has been open since 1900. Another post office, Lorna, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Lorna
1898–1900
Morse
1900–today
18901960today

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Morse’s history

What year was Morse founded?

The Morse post office opened in 1900, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (1), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.