Bayou Teche

Bayou Teche at its intersection with the Wax Lake outlet of the Atchafalaya River in St Mary Parish, Louisiana. The bayou runs bottom–top in the picture. View is to the west-northwest.

The Bayou Teche is a 125-mile long waterway of great cultural significance in south central Louisiana. Bayou Teche was the Mississippi River's main course when it developed a delta about 2,800 to 4,500 years ago. Through a natural process known as deltaic switching, the river's deposits of silt and sediment cause the Mississippi to change its course every thousand years or so.

History

The Teche begins in Port Barre where it draws water from Bayou Courtableau and then flows southward to meet the Lower Atchafalaya River at Patterson. During the time of the Acadian migration to what was then known as the Attakapas region, the Teche was the primary means of transportation. After the levees were built along the Atachafalaya River in the 1930s, the Teche and the rice farms located along the bayou suffered a drastic reduction in fresh water. Between 1976 and 1982, the United States Army Corps of Engineers built a pumping station at Krotz Springs, Louisiana to pump water from the Atchafalaya River into Bayou Courtableau.

The name "Teche" is a Chitimacha Indian word meaning "snake", related to the bayou's twists and turns resembling a snake's movement. The Chitimacha tell an ancient story of how the snake attacked their villages, and it took many warriors many years to kill it. Where the huge carcass lay and decomposed, the depression it left behind filled with water to become the bayou.^[1]

Towns on Bayou Teche

Towns along the Teche include:

• St. Landry Parish, Louisiana
  • Port Barre, Louisiana
  • Leonville, Louisiana
  • Arnaudville, Louisiana
• St. Martin Parish, Louisiana
  • Cecilia, Louisiana
  • Breaux Bridge, Louisiana
  • Parks, Louisiana
  • St. Martinville, Louisiana
• Iberia Parish, Louisiana
  • Loreauville, Louisiana
  • New Iberia, Louisiana
  • Jeanerette, Louisiana
• St. Mary Parish, Louisiana
  • Charenton, Louisiana
  • Baldwin, Louisiana
  • Berwick, Louisiana
  • Franklin, Louisiana
  • Patterson, Louisiana

See also

Bayou Teche National Wildlife Refuge

References