Leon Godchaux

Leon Godchaux (June 10, 1824 – May 18, 1899) was a French-born American businessman, planter, sugar plantation owner and the founder of the Leon Godchaux Clothing Co. department store and Godchaux Sugars Inc.. He lived in Louisiana, where the "largest sugar plantations" were "the Calumet, and those owned by Leon Godchaux, 'The Sugar King of the South.'"

Biography Godchaux was born on June 10, 1824, in Alsace–Lorraine, to a Jewish family in Herbéviller region of Lorraine France. He immigrated to the United States in 1837.

In 1845, Godchaux founded the Leon Godchaux Clothing Co., a department store that anchored Canal Street in New Orleans for years to come. He died on May 18, 1899, aged 74. By the time of his death, he owned 30,000 acres of sugar cane fields which annually produced 27 million pounds of refined white sugar.

In 1975, he was honored on a Mardi Gras doubloon as a "great man of Louisiana."