West Feliciana Parish is part of the Baton Rouge metropolitan statistical area.

Following the founding of the Bayou Sara settlement by French Franciscan/Capuchin monks in the late 17th century, the area was explored further by France, Spain, and Great Britain.

The original settlement was flooded repeatedly and finally lost to the waters of the Mississippi River.

In 1810, the colonists, many of whom were of British descent, rebelled against the Spanish colonial regime and established the short-lived independent Republic of West Florida.

Within a few months, the United States declared the area to be part of the territory included in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

Feliciana Parish was established in 1810, in the Territory of Orleans, which was admitted to the Union two years later as the state of Louisiana.

[3] During the American Civil War, West Feliciana Parish provided financial assistance to the families of soldiers fighting for the Confederate States of America.

[6] Since before the Civil War, white conservative voters in West Feliciana historically supported the Democratic Party.

The white-dominated legislature passed increasingly stringent Jim Crow and segregation legislation.

In 1972, the year of Richard Nixon's re-election as President, after widespread anti-war protests and other cultural changes, West Feliciana was the only Louisiana parish to support the Democratic ticket of George McGovern and Sargent Shriver.

During the same period, most African Americans in the South began to support the national Democratic Party, which had helped their drive for civil rights.

Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin won the parish in 2008, but they lost the Presidential/Vice-Presidential contest to Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

[8] The area—including references to the loess soil and Louisiana State Penitentiary—was used by author Walker Percy as the setting for his last novel, The Thanatos Syndrome.

The paper was later published by Elrie's son James M. Robinson, who sold it to Marilyn and David Goff in the 1970s.

Founded in 1976, The Angolite is a news magazine created and published at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.