BATON ROUGE, LA – Louisiana historian and self-described “rural geography expert” Raymond Boudreaux claims he has developed a foolproof method for identifying any parish in the state by simply standing in a Dollar General parking lot and counting how many other Dollar Generals he can see.
According to Boudreaux, the system took more than twenty years of field research and logging thousands of miles across Louisiana.
“If I can see one additional Dollar General, we’re probably in a larger parish,” Boudreaux explained while pointing toward three separate yellow signs visible from the same parking lot. “If I can see two, I can usually narrow it down to about five parishes. If I can see four or more, I’m almost certainly somewhere along a state highway.”
The historian says factors such as the age of the building, the condition of the shopping carts, and the ratio of fishing gear to automotive products provide additional clues.
State tourism head Billy Nungesser reportedly expressed interest in the technique after discovering it was significantly faster than reading most parish welcome signs.
Boudreaux says he plans to publish his findings later this year in a 400-page reference guide titled The Louisiana Dollar General Atlas: A Field Guide to Parish Recognition.
Boudreaux says his next project will focus on determining a town’s population by counting the number of boiled peanut signs visible from any vape shop.
