The Atchafalaya River Basin has changed a great deal in the past century and a half. Twisting bayous where steamboats traveled, loaded with huge rafts of timber, are now filled with sediment and grown over with trees. Other bayous, broad lakes and the Atchafalaya itself have been straightened and dredged to greater depths. Every year the spring floods of the Atchafalaya River leave more silt and sand behind, burying the basin's past further beneath the surface.

However, some people can recall a different Atchafalaya Basin. They remember a home where their ancestors lived for more than three generations, and where they themselves grew up. They remember a small community that no longer exists. They remember a place called Bayou Chene.

Bayou Chene Methodist Church during the 1927 flood.

The great flood of 1927 marks the period of decline of Bayou Chene. In 1952, the Bayou Chene community symbolically came to an end with the closing of the Post Office.

Virtually all remaining residents left Bayou Chene soon after. Former Bayou Chene residents clustered in New Iberia and St. Martinville, to the west of the basin and Bayou Sorrel and Plaquemine to the east, as well as several other communities.

The live oaks that gave Bayou Chene its name are rotting stumps, their dead boughs projecting from ground level. Houses, graveyards and other features of Bayou Chene lie silent beneath the shroud of sediment. Fishermen and hunters speed down a bayou named Bayou Chene, oblivious to the buried history of a once-thriving community.

Atchafalaya Basin houseboats, circa 1920s. Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Chauvin Robichaux.

This booklet is the second in our series of popular publications in support of the Corps historic preservation and cultural resources management program. The booklet was prepared in conjunction with the District’s Atchafalaya Basin Floodway Project.

This 20 page booklet may be requested in print form or downloaded as a 4.2 MB Adobe PDF file.

See Related Booklet: History of Baton Rouge Waterfront -- history of a location dating back to 1699, when named by Sieur d' Iberville, the founder of the colony of Louisiana.