Mission

As a publicly owned utilities system, we provide high-quality, competitively priced services that exceed our customers’ expectations, and contribute to the Consolidated Government to support other community needs.

History

LUS was created to meet the needs of a growing Lafayette.

Lafayette, named after the Marquis de Lafayette in 1884, formerly known as Vermilionville, was a small but thriving town with only a couple thousand residents. As the railroad brought business into the area, factories, general stores and hotels brought life to the blossoming city and attracted immigrants, businessmen and families.  Such an influx put a heavy burden on the city’s infrastructure, and the ability to supply power on a consistent basis became an issue of paramount importance.

City leaders initiated a campaign to provide their own power and, in 1896, Lafayette voters unanimously supported the funding for municipal water and electrical plant.

“We the undersigned constituting more than one-third of the property taxpayers of the incorporated town of Lafayette, Louisiana, believing that a water supply and means of lighting our town and streets are urgent public necessities, and understanding the established rates of taxation to be insufficient to obtain these benefits, hereby petition you as the governing body of said town to levy and collect an increased rate of taxation, …for the purpose of procuring, constructing and operating a waterworks and electric light-system therein…”

With the bonds of corporation signed in 1897, construction of the City Water and Light Plant began on what eventually became known as the Grant Street plant which soon began generating electricity for the city with water and wastewater services following in 1898.