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Southern Jewish Communities Overview  >>  Louisiana  >>  Morgan
City Morgan City, Louisiana  Morgan City synagogue  In southern
Louisiana, about an hour west of New Orleans, the Atchafalaya
River is king.  This “long river,” as the local Attakapas
Indians called it, stretching over 125 miles, engendered Morgan
City’s growth as a center of trade.  The city was originally
named Brashear for the Kentucky sugar planter who settled there,
Walter Brashear.  After the Civil War, steamship entrepreneur
Charles Morgan’s efforts transformed the river town into a
center of trade for animal fur, cypress timber, and seafood. 
The city was renamed Morgan City in his honor in 1876.  In the
twentieth century, oil raised Morgan City to prominence in
Louisiana.  But more than anything else, the predominantly
Catholic city, located within a distinct Cajun region, is famous
for its “jumbo” shrimp  And yet, among such a distinct culture
foreign to their own, Jews lived