Old Cattle Trail

Beef is the story behind a road like this. After Acadians reached St. Martinville and Opelousas in 1765, their vacheries, or cattle ranches, became the base of Louisiana's herds, and New Orleans had a meat shortage to fill. By 1802 the western prairies were the city's main supplier. The cattle were hardy longhorns that suited the heat and the native grass. Drovers pushed them across bayous by firing pistols to startle the animals or by laying mats of cut marsh grass. Bull Run Road, the marker says, carried part of that traffic through Chacahoula.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 8.1 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.
• E. D. White Historic Site — 8.2 mi
  A National Historic Landmark house of about 1790 on Bayou Lafourche, built by enslaved people and home to two Whites, a governor and a Chief Justice, with an exhibit on the bayou's history.
• Laurel Valley Village — 9.4 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.
• Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge — 13 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.

More markers nearby

• Gibson Methodist Episcopal Church — 4.9 mi
• Sugar Row Plantations — 6.6 mi
• Mysteries of the Wetlands — 7.6 mi
• Tomb Of Henry Schuyler Thibodaux — 7.6 mi