On April 14, 1915, national attention turned to New Iberia when Booker T. Washington, the celebrated orator, educator, and presidential adviser, visited Howe Institute as part of his tour of Black schools in Louisiana. Newspaper accounts reported that thousands came to hear him speak, and photographs taken that day by his official photographer, A.P. Bedou, preserved the faces of Iberians in the crowd. Founded in 1888 by St. Paul Congregational Church of New Iberia with assistance from the American Missionary Association and an endowment from philanthropist Peter Howe of Illinois, Howe Institute was established to educate Blacks of Iberia Parish and nearby communities. The school stood on the site of the current Iberia Parish courthouse between Madison, later renamed Pershing, and Washington Streets, and later came under the control of the Union 6th District Missionary Baptist Association. Howe also served as a refugee camp for Blacks fleeing the waters of the Great Flood of 1927, and its alumni included prominent early professionals who served communities throughout Louisiana and across the United States. Another school for Blacks, Wakefield Institute on Bank Street, had preceded Howe but was destroyed by a tornado in 1874. Howe's longest-serving principal was Prof. Jonas H. Henderson, who led the school from 1896 to 1933.