Sunset, Louisiana

Sunset takes its name from an 1880 Southern Pacific Railroad depot — the station was named for the Sunset Route, the transcontinental line that ran from New Orleans to Los Angeles. The town grew around the depot and the rice and sugar agriculture of the surrounding St. Landry Parish prairie. The retired railcars from the old Sunset train yard now serve as guest rooms at the Train Wreck Inn in neighboring Grand Coteau — a mail car, a caboose, a ticket booth, and a depot building, moved a few miles down the road and restored with Wes Anderson color palettes and Louisiana vinyl. The corridor between Sunset and Grand Coteau — with Café Josephine for dinner, the Train Wreck Inn to sleep, and Sacred Heart Academy's miracle chapel a short walk away — is one of the more quietly extraordinary overnight stops in Acadiana.