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Office: Concordia Parish Police Jury Emergency Preparedness – 4001 Carter Street, Room 1, Vidalia, LA 71373 | (318) 336-7151 | Fax (318) 336-9915; operates a parish-wide alert system (CONCORDIA keyword) covering missing persons, natural disasters, evacuation notices, boil-water advisories, and shelter-in-place notifications.
Sheriff: Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office – 4001 Carter Street, Room 7, Vidalia, LA 71373 | (318) 336-5231 | Fax (318) 336-5021; Sheriff David Hedrick, in office since 2020; 270 regular deputies plus 10 part-time deputies – one of the larger sheriff’s offices in the state; maintains an Emergency Response Team (ERT) for high-risk operations. Concordia Parish Correctional Facility – 26356 Hwy 15, Ferriday, LA | (318) 757-1865/2154; also River Correctional Center at the same general area, (318) 757-2154.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: US-84 and US-425 serve Vidalia, the parish seat, directly across the Mississippi River from Natchez, Mississippi, in East-Central Louisiana.
Notes: Concordia Parish’s name is of uncertain origin – theories include an early land grant called “New Concordia,” a “concord” reached over a mutual surrender of enslaved people, or a mansion named Concord owned by a Spanish colonial governor.
Notes: The town of Ferriday is genuinely the birthplace of an extraordinary trio of first cousins who each became giants in their respective fields: rock-and-roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis (born 1935), country music star Mickey Gilley (born 1936), and televangelist Jimmy Swaggart (born 1935) – all born within about a year of each other, raised in the same Pentecostal extended family, and taught piano together as boys. Ferriday billed itself “Where Music Was Born,” and the family home is preserved as a museum. The town was also the childhood home of Howard K. Smith, the pioneering broadcast journalist who moderated the first televised Kennedy-Nixon debate, and of General Claire Chennault, the WWII hero who trained the famed “Flying Tigers” pilots at Ferriday’s Lake St. John before the war.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: Concordia Parish Veterans Affairs – confirm current contact via louisiana.gov/local-louisiana/concordia-parish.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
Concordia Parish Library – 4001 Carter Street, Room 1, Vidalia, LA 71373 | (318) 336-7151.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: Frogmore Plantation (a working cotton plantation and history tour) near Ferriday, the historic markers commemorating Lewis/Gilley/Swaggart, and the Vidalia riverfront across from historic Natchez, Mississippi are the parish’s premier attractions.
Notes: The genuine “three famous cousins from one small town” story is among the most extraordinary pop-culture facts covered anywhere in this project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: Concordia Parish Assessor’s Office – confirm current contact via louisiana.gov/local-louisiana/concordia-parish.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
Concordia PAWS (formerly Concordia Animal Welfare & Rescue Shelter, CAWS) – 1212 First Street, Ferriday, LA 71334 | (601) 791-2940 or (318) 719-0940 | Email: [email protected]; founded 2003 by a mother-daughter team, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit rescue for abused, abandoned, and neglected dogs, run by volunteers; serves the entire Miss-Lou area including Vidalia and Ferriday. Visiting hours: 10 AM-2 PM daily (confirm current schedule).
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: Concordia Parish Police Jury Public Works – confirm current contact via louisiana.gov/local-louisiana/concordia-parish.
NOTES: Concordia Parish is the third parish in the third batch of the Louisiana v2 A+ sourced standard. The genuine “three famous cousins from one small town” story is among the most extraordinary pop-culture facts covered anywhere in this project. All contact information above was sourced via web search as of early August 2026 and should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit, deadline-sensitive filing, or emergency-adjacent decision.
About Concordia Parish County
Concordia Parish is where Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley, and Jimmy Swaggart grew up as cousins in Ferriday – the most celebrity-producing small town per capita in American music and religious broadcasting history, making Ferriday one of the most extraordinary cultural origin points in Louisiana.
Vidalia (the parish seat, population ~4,000) sits across the Mississippi from Natchez, connected by the only Mississippi River bridge in the area.
All Services
Browse every category and topic available for this county.
Concordia Parish Assessor at 4001 Carter Street, Suite 2, Vidalia, LA 71373, phone 318-336-5952. LA residential assessed at 10% of fair market value; $75,000 homestead exemption.
Courts & Legal
Concordia Parish Clerk of Court at 4001 Carter Street, Vidalia, LA 71373, phone 318-336-4204, handles successions.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
CLERK OF COURT (Records, Vital Records, Mortgages)
4001 Carter St., Vidalia, LA 71373
(318) 336-4204
Genealogy
Parish-level record sources
Concordia Parish Clerk of Court (succession/estate case files – see Succession section above).
The 1939 Concordia Parish Courthouse, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a significant local landmark.
Local societies
No dedicated Concordia Parish genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
A NOTE ON LOUISIANA LAW: Louisiana is the only U.S. state built on a civil-law tradition (rooted in the Napoleonic Code) rather than English common law. Louisiana doesn’t use the word “probate” – the equivalent process is called a “succession,” and its 64 parishes are the equivalent of counties elsewhere. Community property and separate property rules also work differently here than in common-law states, which can affect what’s actually part of the succession.
Where to go
Concordia Parish 7th Judicial District Court, Clerk of Court 4001 Carter Street, Room 5 (P.O. Box 790), Vidalia, LA 71373 (318) 336-4204 Concordia Parish is on the Mississippi River in east-central Louisiana, seated in Vidalia. The 1939 Art Deco Concordia Parish Courthouse (National Register of Historic Places) replaced an earlier courthouse when the town of Vidalia was relocated six blocks inland as part of a flood control project.
Step 1: figure out which path applies
Small Succession Affidavit – under La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 3421 et seq., available for estates with a gross value of $125,000 or less at the date of death (or of any value if the decedent has been dead more than 20 years). No court proceeding is required. At least two people must sign – typically the surviving spouse (if any) plus one or more heirs, sworn before a notary. If the estate includes immovable property (real estate), the affidavit can’t be recorded until 90 days after the date of death, and it must be recorded with the Clerk of Court/Recorder in every parish where the decedent owned real estate.
Succession Without Administration (“simple possession”) – used when there are no debts to pay and all heirs agree; commonly resolved in 30 to 90 days via a Petition for Possession.
Administered Succession – required when a court-appointed succession representative needs to inventory assets and pay debts before distribution; typically takes 3 to 9 months, longer if contested.
Important: for anything beyond a small succession affidavit, Louisiana courts generally require a licensed Louisiana attorney to represent the succession – self-representation and generic online forms are not accepted the way they are in many other states.
Step 2: filing a regular succession
File a Petition for Possession (simple cases) or a Petition for Administration (if a representative and formal administration are needed) in the district court of the parish where the decedent was domiciled at death.
The court admits any will and, where needed, appoints an executor (testate) or administrator (intestate), issuing Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration.
In an administered succession, the representative prepares a sworn descriptive list of assets, pays valid debts, and accounts to the court.
The court issues a Judgment of Possession, which must then be recorded in the parish conveyance/land records and with the parish tax assessor to clear title.
What it costs
Filing fees vary by parish and case type; publication costs apply when legal notices are required.
A full administered succession typically requires attorney representation – flat fees for straightforward matters often run in the low thousands of dollars, more if contested or complex.
A small succession affidavit is far less expensive and, when no real estate is involved, can often be handled without an attorney – though even small errors can cause a bank, title company, or the Louisiana OMV to reject the affidavit.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
4001 Carter St., Vidalia, LA 71373
(318) 336-5231
SHERIFF / TAX COLLECTOR
4001 Carter St., Vidalia, LA 71373
(318) 336-5231
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
REGISTRAR OF VOTERS (Elections)
4001 Carter St., Vidalia, LA 71373
(318) 336-5748
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Concordia Parish Health Unit
(318) 336-5765
LA DCFS — Central Region
(318) 487-5600
LA Medicaid
(888) 342-6207
Riverland Medical Center
riverlandmedical.org (Ferriday — quality community hospital)
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Concordia Parish Health Unit – confirm current contact via Louisiana Department of Health regional office listings.
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Editorial Trust
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Reviewed by CountyOffices Editorial Team
Last verified June 2026
County Facts
Population: 18,000
Area: 695 sq mi
Established: 1807
Public Records
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