Heymann’s Department Store was opened in downtown Lafayette by Maurice Heymann in 1916.  It was a full scale retail store with a wide variety of departments.  The very first of its kind in Lafayette, Heymann’s Department Store remained in business downtown until the mid nineteen eighties.

Maurice Heymann developed the present Oil Center in 1960 on once what was nursery property.  By the late 1960’s the local offices of every major American oil company were located in or very near the Heymann Oil Center development.

Herbert Heymann, Maurice and Germaine Heymann’s son, went on to further develop the Oil Center into a major retail, professional, and medical office facility that remains the nerve center of business in Lafayette today.