St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana


St. Tammany Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana named after Tamanend, the legendary Lenape Chief of Chiefs and the "Patron Saint of America." At the 2020 census, the population was 264,570, making it the fourth-most populous parish in Louisiana. The parish seat is Covington. The parish was founded in 1810.
St. Tammany Parish comprises the Slidell–Mandeville–Covington metropolitan statistical area, which is also included in the New Orleans–Metairie–Slidell combined statistical area. St. Tammany Parish is one of the fastest-growing parishes in the state, along with Livingston and Ascension. The population has quadrupled since 1970, and is expected to double again by 2030, expecting to diversify the population of the parish. Though it was not heavily directly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the community is growing in large part due to subsequent displacement of populations, with many coming from the New Orleans metropolitan area seeking to avoid hurricane and weather-related threats, caused in part due to climate change.
WWW stpgov.org

History

Pre-history

St. Tammany was originally inhabited by numerous Indian peoples, including the Colapissas, Bayou Goulas, Chickasaw, Biloxi, Choctaw and Pensacola nations.
In 1699, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, a French explorer, was the first European to visit the area of present-day St. Tammany Parish. While exploring lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas, Iberville wrote in his journal, "The place where I am is one of the prettiest I have seen, fine level ground bare of canes. The land north of the lakes is a country of pine trees mixed with hard woods. The soil is sandy and many tracks of buffalo and deer can be seen."

West Florida

After the 18th-century founding and development of New Orleans, French settlers began to enter the region. The primary industry was the production of pitch, tar, turpentine and resin from the forests.
After France was defeated in the French and Indian War, St. Tammany became part of British West Florida. During this period, the area comprising today's St. Tammany attracted British loyalists who wanted to escape persecution in the Thirteen Colonies. After Great Britain was defeated in the American Revolutionary War, West Florida was governed by the Spanish. The West Florida period ended with the West Florida revolt, which precipitated annexation by the United States.

Creation and naming of the parish

In 1810, President James Madison annexed West Florida as part of the United States and had Governor William C. C. Claiborne incorporate the area into the Territory of Orleans. Claiborne established the boundaries of the Florida Parishes with the creation of its first four parishes: East Baton Rouge, Feliciana, St. Helena, and St. Tammany. St. Tammany Parish was named after the Delaware Indian Chief Tamanend, who made peace with William Penn and was generally renowned for his goodness. Among the nine Louisiana parishes named after saints, St. Tammany is the only one whose eponym is not a saint of the Catholic Church, the ecclesiastical parishes of which had formed the basis for the state's civil parishes. Tamanend is not known to have been Roman Catholic or Christian, but he had been popularly revered as a "Patron Saint of America" since the post-Revolutionary period, long after his death.

19th century

In the early 1830s, there were only two towns in St. Tammany: Covington, a retreat with summer homes and hotels; and Madisonville, a shipbuilding and sawmill town. The area south of Covington to Lake Pontchartrain's northern shore and extending eastwards to the Pearl River border with the state of Mississippi was known as the Covington Lowlands. This region included the present-day towns of Mandeville, Abita Springs, Lacombe, Slidell, and Pearl River.
Mandeville was founded in 1834 by Bernard de Marigny de Mandeville and was developed as a health resort for wealthy New Orleanians, because it was believed that ozone was both salutary and naturally emitted by the numerous trees in the area, giving rise to an early name for the region — the "Ozone Belt".
Regular ferry service commenced across Lake Pontchartrain, and shortly thereafter another resort community was founded, Abita Springs. A railroad was constructed in the 1880s connecting Covington and Abita Springs to Mandeville and to New Orleans, allowing for further growth, particularly in Abita Springs, where underground spring waters permitted supposedly healthful baths.

20th century

With the completion of high-speed road connections to St. Tammany from New Orleans and its older suburbs, the parish began to develop as a bedroom community. Suburban sprawl first took root in and around Slidell, Louisiana, in the eastern part of the parish. Though the Causeway was completed in 1956 and linked suburban Metairie with western St. Tammany, growth in and around western St. Tammany towns like Mandeville, Covington, and Madisonville only gathered momentum in the late 1960s.

21st century

While St. Tammany was sparsely populated and almost wholly rural in the 1950s, its population exceeded 200,000 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in 2005.
A major event in the parish's transition from a bedroom community of commuters to a more diverse and independent economic unit occurred in 2008 with the relocation of Chevron's regional corporate headquarters from downtown New Orleans to an office park outside of Covington.
One of the parish's most powerful figures was Jack Strain, who served as St. Tammany sheriff from 1996 to 2016. After losing his bid for a sixth term, Strain was the subject of a federal corruption investigation into his privatizing a parish work release program in exchange for kickbacks. After being charged with 16 federal counts, Strain agreed to plead guilty to one count of bribery. But the federal investigation also uncovered accusations of sexual abuse involving juveniles. Strain was charged with four counts of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated incest and one count each of sexual battery and indecent behavior with a juvenile. In 2021, he was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to four life terms in prison.

Hurricane Katrina effects

Hurricane Katrina made its final landfall in eastern St. Tammany Parish. The western eye wall passed directly over St. Tammany Parish as a Category 3 hurricane at about 9:45 AM CST, August 29, 2005. The communities of Slidell, Avery Estates, Lakeshore Estates, Oak Harbor, Eden Isles and Northshore Beach were inundated by the storm surge that extended over inland. The storm surge impacted all of St. Tammany Parish's coastline, including Lacombe, Mandeville and Madisonville. The storm surge in the area of the Rigolets Pass was estimated at, not including wave action, declining to at Madisonville. The surge had a second peak in eastern St. Tammany as the westerly winds from the southern eye wall pushed the surge to the east, backing up at the bottleneck of the Rigolets Pass.
The twin spans of I-10 bridges between Slidell and New Orleans East were virtually destroyed, and much of I-10 in New Orleans East was under water. The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and the U.S. Highway 11 bridge, connecting the north and south shores of Lake Pontchartrain, were open only to emergency traffic.
Initial search and rescue operations were conducted south of U.S. Highway 190 from Lacombe east to the state line. Fire District No. 1 and the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's office evacuated over 3,000 people from flooded homes and rescued about 300 people in imminent danger. Radio communications among first responders functioned throughout the rescue period, but the 9-1-1 system was not operational for ten days. Utility services were not available anywhere in the parish. Generator power was available for hospitals and a special needs shelter. Hospitals were running at capacity on generator power.
The hurricane-force winds toppled trees and telephone poles parish-wide, blocking all transportation routes. Land debris cleanup continued into 2007, with over 6.6 million cubic yards collected. Debris cleaning in waterways continued at least through 2009.
Hurricane Katrina damaged 48,792 housing units in St. Tammany Parish from flood waters, high winds, or both.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the parish has a total area of, of which is land and is water. It is located to the north of Lake Pontchartrain.

Major highways

Adjacent counties and parishes

National protected areas

State protected areas

State parks

Communities

Cities

Towns

Villages

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, the parish had a population of 264,570 people, 102,005 households, 65,335 families, and 110,370 housing units recorded in the count.
The median age was 41.1 years, with 23.6% of residents younger than 18 and 18.3% aged 65 or older; for every 100 females there were 94.6 males and 91.5 males per 100 females age 18 and over.
The racial makeup of the parish was 74.3% White, 13.0% Black or African American, 0.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.5% Asian, less than 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 2.3% from some other race, and 8.5% from two or more races, while Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 7.9% of the population.
Among the 102,005 households, 32.8% had children under the age of 18, 51.7% were married couples, 16.3% had a male householder with no spouse or partner present, 25.9% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present, 24.6% were individuals, and 11.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
Of the housing units, 7.6% were vacant, 77.0% of occupied units were owner-occupied, and 23.0% were renter-occupied; the homeowner vacancy rate was 1.9% and the rental vacancy rate was 10.3%.
Seventy-seven percent of residents lived in urban areas while 23.0% lived in rural areas.

2010 census

The 2010 census recorded 233,740 people in the parish.

2000 census

The 2000 census counted 191,268 people in the parish.

2019 estimates

At the 2019 census estimates, 78.4% of residents lived in owner-occupied housing units, the median home value was $218,500, the median gross rent was $1,086, and the median household income was $68,905; 11.5% of the population lived at or below the poverty line and the employment rate was 56.9%.
Culturally, 16.4% of the population were of French ancestry, 15.5% were German, 12.2% were Irish, 11.3% were Italian, and 0.4% were Sub-Saharan African; the second most-spoken language was Spanish.

Religion

Religiously, Christianity has dominated the area since European colonization. Among the Christian denominations prevalent throughout the parish, Roman Catholicism has remained the largest with 145,007 members, followed by Baptists and non/inter-denominational Protestants per the Association of Religion Data Archives in 2020.

Politics

St. Tammany Parish has heavily favored Republican politicians. In 2020, Donald Trump won St. Tammany by a greater number of votes than he did any other county of Louisiana. The last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the parish was John F. Kennedy in 1960. In 2008, John McCain received 76% of the vote in the parish, despite losing to Democrat Barack Obama nationally by a substantial margin. In the 2008 U.S. Senate election, incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu was re-elected, but lost the parish to Republican John Kennedy, with Kennedy winning 61% of the vote in the parish to Landrieu's 36%. In 2004, Republican George W. Bush won 75% of the vote to Democrat John Kerry’s 24%. The increase in the Republican margin of victory since 2004 has been attributed in part to the relocation of numerous, typically Republican, St. Bernard Parish residents to St. Tammany Parish in the aftermath of post-Hurricane Katrina. In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump won the parish with 71.1% of the vote to Kamala Harris's 27.3%.

Education

K-12 education

St. Tammany Parish Public Schools operates the public schools in all of the parish. They are consistently rated as among the highest-performing in the state.
Roman Catholic parochial secondary schools of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans include:
Other private schools include:

Tertiary education

St. Tammany Parish is within the service areas of two community colleges: Northshore Technical Community College and Delgado Community College. Northshore Technical Community College has its main campus in Lacombe; this campus was established in January 2017. Additionally Nunez Community College in Chalmette, and the Sidney Collier Campus in East New Orleans of Delgado Community College are in proximity to the parish. Previously Covington and Slidell hosted campuses of Delgado Community College, with Slidell having the Slidell Learning Center and later the Northshore-Slidell campus, and with Covington having the Northshore-Covington Campus. The latter opened in summer 2002. The Slidell campus closed in 2016 due to financial issues.
The parish is the eponym of Saint Tammany Hall on the campus of Southeastern Louisiana University, in neighboring Tangipahoa Parish.

Geology

  • Heinrich, P. V., R. P. McCulloh, and J. Snead, 2007,, Louisiana Geological Survey, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
  • Heinrich, P. V., R. P. McCulloh, and J. Snead, 2004,, Louisiana Geological Survey, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
  • McCulloh, R. P., P. V. Heinrich, and J. Snead, 2003,, Louisiana Geological Survey, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.