Seven years later, Jimmy Swaggart World Ministries had purchased more than 200 acres of land along Bluebonnet Road stretching from I-10 to Perkins Road. “You could see with the expansion that was planned for Bluebonnet and the expansion of Baton Rouge, that was the place to go,” Goux says. After Goux acquired the land, he went back to his own business. Swaggart told Goux to start negotiations with D.H.
That’s what we were looking for,” Swaggart says. We needed land to construct our ministry. “I didn’t think about the potential for this area. But he could see that section was a growing area with plenty of available property. When Swaggart first looked at the land that would become the core of his ministry, Bluebonnet Road was still being built. “But we all looked at the piece of property and prayed about this and decided that was the place where we needed to be.”
“There was not a whole lot out on Bluebonnet,” Goux says. Frances Swaggart, Jimmy’s wife, liked a site at I-12 and Airline Highway. Goux, now living in Mandeville, says he checked out sites along interstates 10 and 12. Ronald Goux, who was serving as vice president and chief executive officer of Swaggart’s ministry, was tasked with looking for a new site to replace its Goya Avenue headquarters behind Bon Marché Mall. Jimmy Swaggart was rapidly running out of room for his church, which had settled in Baton Rouge a little more than 10 years earlier. The article was written by Timothy Boone. This article originally was published by on Tues October 9th, 2007.