How Buzzard's Prairie Got Its Name

The Vermilion Bayou takes its rise from a small puddle of water completely covered by luxuriant grass and black berry briar. The course is westerly, running about half a mile; from thence it turns to the North straightening out into a narrow stream, and runs so for three miles. This part of the Vermilion is known as Coulee des Comeaux, which is very narrow and shallow. After the Coulee des Comeaux comes the Coulee du Bout de I'lle, running northerly. Coulee de Bout de I'lle takes its name on account of its being at the beginning of the woods.

There died in the last century, a mastodon, whose bones were collected by a French naturalist shortly afterward and shipped to the Musee du Jardin des Planteurs of Paris, but were unfortunately wrecked and lost at sea. The only relic of the mastodon was a femur or leg bone that was kept by the first Guilbeau and used as a pestle to bruise indigo which was then cultivated in the Attakapas country. Buzzards, in uncountable numbers, flocked to the spot to feed on the mastodon's flesh. The Indians then living in the country, unable to pronounce carrion crows, termed the birds carecros; and from the spot where the mastodon died, the river takes the name of Carencro Bayou.