Pumpkin Center, Louisiana

Pumpkin Center is an unincorporated community in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, United States. Pumpkin Center is located on U.S. Route 190, west of Hammond.

Pumpkin Center, Louisiana
Unincorporated community
Pumpkin Center, Louisiana Pumpkin Center, Louisiana
Coordinates: 30°27′18″N 90°32′31″W
Country	United States
State	Louisiana
Parish	Tangipahoa
Elevation	7 ft (2.1 m)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
Area code(s)	985
GNIS feature ID	543603 [1]
FIPS code	22-62945

Name origin

In the late 1800s a popular vaudeville comedy show called "Tales of Pun'kin Centre"[2] was distributed as a phonograph record and later broadcast over radio featuring a monologue by a fictional character named Uncle Josh Weathersby. The character resided in a fictional farming town called "Pun'kin Center." Some of the local residents formed a baseball team to compete with the surrounding Hammond, Springfield and Albany teams. The team members named themselves the "Pumpkin Center" baseball team. The residents of the surrounding cities and villages began referring to the area as Pumpkin Center and the name stuck.[3]

References

1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Pumpkin Center, Louisiana
2. Discogs. "Uncle Josh Weathersby - Tales Of Pun'kin Centre". Discogs. Retrieved 2019-07-26.
3. Clare D’Artois Leeper (19 October 2012). Louisiana Place Names: Popular, Unusual, and Forgotten Stories of Towns, Cities, Plantations, Bayous, and Even Some Cemeteries. LSU Press. pp. 201–. ISBN 978-0-8071-4738-2.