Historic highway for commerce and life
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the bayou in front of you was Houma's busiest thoroughfare. You might have seen hunters, trappers and fisherman bringing seafood and animal hides to market. Boatmen hauled crops to inland railroad hubs. Profiteers used the bayous to reach the burgeoning oil fields.Eventually canals were dug to connect bayous and shorten trade routes. By the 1930s, the Intracoastal Waterway and paved roads provided more efficient travel. The bayou here today is no longer "navigable," but it remains a reminder of Houma's early "boom" years.Photo captions left bottom to top right - Oyster boat of William J.P. Cenac and associates. c. 1910. Seafood plants, stores, plantations, fishing camps, and homes lined the bayous from inlans cities to the Gulf. Seasonal flooding deposits sediments along bayou banks. This process creates natural levees - elevated layers of soil suitable for buildings and agricultural.School boat on Bayou Black, c. 1920. Residents traveled by boat for work , school, church, shopping, and recreation. Some even took refuge on boats when hurricanes threatened to sweep houses away.Men and mules towed boats against the bayou currents, creating paths along the banks. These cordelles evolved into roads that parallel the bayous today. Bayou, a French version of the Choctaw Indian word| HM Number | HM2BEI |
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| Tags | |
| Placed By | Houma Area Convention and Visitors Bureau |
| Marker Condition | No reports yet |
| Date Added | Sunday, September 16th, 2018 at 5:01pm PDT -07:00 |
| UTM (WGS84 Datum) | 15R E 720792 N 3276460 |
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| Decimal Degrees | 29.59843333, -90.72018333 |
| Degrees and Decimal Minutes | N 29° 35.906', W 90° 43.211' |
| Degrees, Minutes and Seconds | 29° 35' 54.36" N, 90° 43' 12.66" W |
| Driving Directions | Google Maps |
| Area Code(s) | 985 |
| Which side of the road? | Marker is on the right when traveling South |
| Closest Postal Address | At or near 7930 W Park Ave, Houma LA 70364, US |
| Alternative Maps | Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap |
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