Kentwood is named after Amos Kent, an early settler who established a sawmill and a brickyard which eventually became the largest in the south. The lumber industry thrived in the area until about 1920 when virgin timber began to diminish. Kentwood had been the largest town in the parish, but much of the population left with the timber trade. Those people remaining in the town turned to the dairy industry and began to prosper again, using cooperative breeding and marketing techniques. Today, it remains a principal industry in the northern reaches of the parish.
Situated in northern Tangipahoa Parish, sitting directly along the Mississippi state line. It is part of the Hammond metropolitan statistical area.
Kentwood is governed by a Mayor and five Council Members, all elected at large. All are elected for four year terms.
City of Kentwood
308 Avenue G. Kentwood, LA 70444
985-229-3451
Kentwood History
In the mid-1800s, the land that would become Kentwood was a vast, unbroken cathedral of longleaf yellow pine. The trees stood so thick that the midday sun barely touched the forest floor. It was a wilderness waiting for a spark, and that spark arrived with the rhythmic clanging of iron rails.
As the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad carved its way north toward the Mississippi line, an ambitious New Hampshire native named Amos Kent saw a future hidden in the timber. In the late 1880s, Kent bought up acres of the wilderness and built a sprawling sawmill beside the tracks.
When the local post office officially opened on a leap day—February 29, 1888—the postmaster christened the bustling settlement “Kentwood” in his honor. By the time the town officially incorporated in 1893, Kentwood was an industrial dynamo. Steam engines whistled as logging trains hauled massive logs out of the woods, and the chimneys of the Kentwood Brick Company puffed thick smoke into the sky, baking bricks that would build cities across the South. For a fleeting moment, Kentwood was the largest, loudest town in Tangipahoa Parish.
But the boom had a steep price. By the early 1920s, the axes fell silent. The virgin forests were completely cleared, leaving behind a barren landscape of stumps. The great sawmill burned to the ground, the logging tracks were torn up, and the timber barons moved on. Kentwood was left deforested and left for dead.
The Land of Milk and Honey
The people of Kentwood, however, refused to pack up. Looking out at the miles of cleared, sun-drenched land, they realized the stumps could be pulled and the earth could be repurposed. The town traded the lumberjack’s ax for the farmer’s milking stool.
Amos Kent’s son, Charles Adolph Kent Sr., noticed that the local climate and new pastures were perfect for dairy cattle. In 1912, he added a creamery to his local ice plant. Within a decade, his facility was buying milk from hundreds of newly established family farms, shipping fresh dairy down the rail lines to New Orleans, and supplying condensed milk to ice cream makers across the region.
For the next fifty years, Kentwood proudly wore the crown of “The Dairy Capital of the South.” The morning soundtrack of the town shifted from the screech of buzzsaws to the lowing of cattle and the clinking of metal milk cans. Generations of families grew up on these farms, anchoring the town’s economy and cementing a culture of grit, community, and hard, honest labor.
A Clear and Global Tomorrow
As the late 20th century approached, the dairy industry decentralized, and the small family farms faced heavy pressure from large corporate operations. Once again, Kentwood’s foundational economy began to fade. But just as before, the town looked to its natural surroundings for salvation—this time, looking deep beneath the earth.
Hidden far below the soil lay pure, untouched artesian aquifers. Enterprising locals tapped into these natural springs, birthing Kentwood Springs Water. What started as a local bottling venture quickly cascaded into a dominant commercial brand, quenching the thirst of millions across the Gulf Coast. The town that had once given the South its lumber and its milk was now providing its water.
Then came the late 1990s, and a different kind of lightning struck. A local girl who had grown up singing in the choirs of Kentwood’s churches and dancing across its stages was catapulted into the global spotlight. Britney Spears became an international pop megastar. Almost overnight, the quiet, rural town of “The Foyer of Louisiana” was flooded with international paparazzi, tour buses, and fans eager to see the hometown of a global icon. The local historical museum opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to her, turning the sleepy town into a pop-culture pilgrimage site.
Today, Kentwood sits quietly on the Louisiana-Mississippi border, a place where a traveler can still feel the weight of history along Main Street. It is a town that remembers the echo of the logging whistle, the warmth of the dairy barns, and the cool rush of its underground springs—a resilient community that has always known how to turn the changing tides of time into a brand new chapter.