1834-1934

Houma began as a land deal. Joseph Hache learned in 1823 that his old claim on Bayou Terrebonne had been confirmed, and in 1834 Hubert Belanger and Richard Grinage, holding a strip on the right bank, donated frontage for a parish seat nearer the road joining Bayou Terrebonne and Bayou Black. The seat had been at Williamsburg, now Bayou Cane. They sold the remaining lots. Francis Jones bought the first, at Main and Goode, and opened an inn in 1837. J. B. Grinage drew the first town map in 1847, and Houma incorporated on March 16, 1848.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Southdown Plantation and Terrebonne Museum — 1.2 mi
  A Greek Revival sugar plantation house in Houma, worked by 233 enslaved people by 1852, with the last Terrebonne mill's story and a worker's cabin of about 1885.
• Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge — 5.5 mi
  A 4,212-acre refuge of freshwater marsh and cypress-tupelo swamp southwest of Houma, with a nature trail to a boardwalk and observation deck and mostly boat-only access.
• Laurel Valley Village — 14 mi
  A sugar plantation's workers' village south of Thibodaux, with cabins of about 1845, shotgun houses, a store and cemetery, and the 1887 strike and massacre in the parish around it.
• Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 15 mi
  A Jean Lafitte National Historical Park center on Bayou Lafourche with Acadian and bayou-life exhibits, a 200-seat theater and ranger-guided boat tours to the E. D. White house.

More markers nearby

• Terrebonne Parish Courthouse Square Oaks — steps away
• A History of Terrebonne Parish — steps away
• Bayou Terrebonne — steps away
• The Grand Dérangement / Le Grand Dérangement — steps away