Bayou Lafourche, ‘the longest Main Street in the world’

The annual Paddle Bayou Lafourche event brings canoes and kayaks from across the U.S. The 65-mile stretch from Donaldsonville to Leeville is often referred to as "the longest Main Street in the world."

Matt Stamey/Staff
Published: Monday, February 15, 2010 at 6:48 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, February 15, 2010 at 6:48 p.m.


It’s an apt nickname when you consider the 65 miles of communities stretching along the bayou from Donaldsonville to Leeville. Most of Lafourche and Assumption parishes’ communities settled primarily along the bayou for its transportation possibilities, fishing, farming and fresh water.

“Bayou Lafourche was once one of the main tributaries of the Mississippi River leading to the Gulf of Mexico,” said Windell Curole, lifelong south Lafourche resident and general manager of the South Lafourche Levee District.

The name, “Lafourche” comes from the Cajun French “Lafourche” meaning a “fork” in a river or path, he added.

In the 1700s, during Robert de LaSalle’s explorations of the Mississippi River, he discovered three channels near the mouth of the river, one of which may have been Bayou Lafourche, according to a history of Bayou Lafourche authored by Curole.

Original inhabitants of the area were various Indian tribes such as the Chawasha, Washa, and the Chitimacha.

In the latter half of the 18th century, a few small European settlements were built in the Lafourche area. The Acadians, French Canadians who were forced to flee Nova Scotia in 1755 and who would become today’s Cajuns, began arriving in Louisiana in 1764. They were given land close to German settlements on the Mississippi and later along bayous Teche and Lafourche. The Acadians adapted quickly to their new environment and flourished as farmers and fishermen, Curole said.

In addition, the area was settled by the so-called “Islenos” between 1788 and 1793, a small group of Canary Islanders imported by the Spanish government to help settle the Louisiana territory. They assimilated into the Acadian communities and by the close of the 18th century both groups had established themselves on Bayou Lafourche.

Two 19th century events would have a profound event on the area, Curole said. The first was the discovery of the process for milling sugar, which allowed the cultivation of sugar as a cash crop in south Louisiana. The second event was the purchase of Louisiana from France by the United States in 1803, opening the area to American and Protestant settlers.

Louisiana’s entrance into the union provided a larger market for the sugar cane crop which produced an increase in settlers, sugar plantations and markets along the bayou.

In 1811 the first steamboats began traveling along the Bayou Lafourche, and in 1884 roads were cut near “Thibodeauville,” today’s Thibodaux. Railroads were extended into the region by 1853.

During the Civil War, Lafourche faced many hardships, Battles were fought along the Bayou Lafourche because of its value as a major alternative route to the Gulf of Mexico, Curole said. Railroads and bridges were destroyed. Flooding became a major problem as the levees, once maintained by the plantation owners, were neglected. Shortages of food and medicine were common. Recovery of the area was slow, and it was not until after technological advances such as telephones and ice manufacturing that economic growth picked up.

Beginning in 1903, Bayou Lafourche was dammed from the Mississippi River, severing the region from the river that promoted its growth, said Simone Maloz, director of Thibodaux-based environmental group Restore or Retreat.

All water transportation from the Mississippi halted, but rail transportation and canals were cut to provide alternative shipping routes to Lafourche communities.

The bayou was dammed because plantation owners were concerned about river flooding, Curole said, but an unintended consequence was that the bayou because stagnant, and the quality of drinking water from the bayou took a downturn. The bayou remained important for fishermen, who used it to travel to the Gulf of Mexico. In the 1920s, oil was discovered in the marshlands and offshore. The future was sealed for Terrebonne and Lafourche. Houma became a boom town for the oil industry, and the major oil ports of Port Fourchon and the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, or LOOP, were constructed in south Lafourche.

“So in 1950 the Bayou Lafourche Fresh Water District was created,” Curole said. “Pumps were installed to pump water from the Mississippi into the bayou.”

Over the years, since being cut off from the Mississippi, the bayou has silted up, reducing the amount of fresh water that can be pumped into it, Maloz said. A present-day consequence is the threat of poor water quality. The low water flow has also allowed salt water to encroach up the bayou.

“Stagnant water and lack of freshwater flow became a critical issue after hurricanes Ike and Gustav, threatening the freshwater drinking supply to 300,000 residents and businesses of Ascension, Assumption, Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes,” Maloz said.


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