Bayou Terrebonne

Houma sits where several bayous meet, one reason the parish seat moved here in 1834. Most early settlers arrived from the Mississippi by way of Bayou Lafourche and then Bayou Terrebonne, which was the road in. What ended its days as the main road was a new channel: the Houma Navigation Canal, 36 miles to the Gulf, opened in 1961. Streets in town are split by canals, and shrimp boats still tie up beside their owners' houses. The Waterlife Museum on the bank carries the bayou's name.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Southdown Plantation and Terrebonne Museum — 1.4 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 — 5.6 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

• The Grand Dérangement / Le Grand Dérangement — steps away
• New Acadia / Nouvelle Acadie — steps away
• A History of Terrebonne Parish — steps away
• 1834-1934 — steps away