Join us to celebrate 75 years!
You and a guest are invited to join us on New Year's Eve to celebrate Schilling Distributing's 75th birthday! We will be ringing in 2025 at the Doubletree Hotel in Lafayette with Rockin' Dopsie Jr. & The Zydeco Twisters performing live, and yes - there is a discounted room block available for the night! A formal invitation will follow but we wanted to give you plenty of time to make arrangements to be there - for more info on why the save-the-date came in the form of a baseball, scroll down for an interesting story about the origins of Schilling Distributing.
We ask that you please RSVP at THIS LINK no later than November 15, 2024 - we hope to see you there!
What is the significance of baseball?
Now you're probably asking yourself, "why a baseball?" The simple reason is that without baseball, there might be no Schilling Distributing Company.
In 1929 Herbert Schilling Sr. made his way from Shreveport to Lafayette to pursue his dream of playing baseball, which is where Schilling Distributing's story really began. Along with a couple business partners (Frem Boustany and Morgan Rodemacher), Schilling Sr. became a co-owner of (and second-baseman for) the Lafayette White Sox and eventually played a major role in forming the Evangeline League in 1934.
The White Sox played at Parkdale Ballpark, which was located near the current site of Hebert Park Golf Course near Mudd Avenue. The team won the inaugural Evangeline League pennant, and attracted great baseball talent being affiliated with the St. Louis Browns from 1936-1941.
In 1932 he used some of the income from the White Sox to purchase a 29-acre property on Moss Street to raise and train Tennessee Walking Horses (that property is where Schilling Distributing Company is located today.) Through his involvement in horse shows he met and befriended Sidney Mouton, who worked as the state manager for Anheuser-Busch.
Mouton encouraged Herbert to apply for Anheuser-Busch distribution rights, and eventually set up an interview with Gussie Busch in Baton Rouge. The two men hit it off over their shared interest in horses and baseball and Schilling was offered the rights to distribute Budweiser and Michelob in Acadiana, which led to the opening of Schilling Distributing Company on January 1, 1950.
So as you can see that when it comes to Schilling Distributing, baseball is much more than a game. It's part of our foundation here in Acadiana.
