an IBERIA PARISH article

Cultures of Acadiana
a look at the French, Cajun, Creole, and Native American cultures of south Louisiana
(a project of Carencro High School - 721 West Butcher Switch Road, Lafayette, LA  70507)

Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, November 25, 1997

Port, airport bring Iberia modern commerce

Jet pilots trained at naval air base from 1960 to 1964

by Jim Bradshaw

Although thousands of acres of sugar cane and other crops continue to point to Iberia Parish's agrarian past, it is also one of the leading industrial parishes in Acadiana, primarily because of industries located at the Acadiana Regional Airport and at the Port of Iberia.

The current Acadiana Regional Airport had its beginning in 1942, when the federal government began to look at Acadiana as a site for a military airfield. In anticipation of the military's needs, the Iberia Parish Police Jury bought 942 acres of land west of New Iberia for $225,000 and began to improve it to meet the military needs. Construction had begun on a runway and taxiways when World War II ended and the airfield was not then commissioned as a military facility.

The police jury nonetheless continued construction and operated an airport at the site until October 1954, when the Navy bought 4,000 acres, including the airport, for a jet training base. More construction was done and the U. S. Naval Air Station at New Iberia was commissioned on March 5, 1960.

The air station lasted only a few years, however. It was closed in 1964 as an economy measure. Immediately upon the closing the air station, the Iberia Police Jury petitioned the federal government for use of the main runway and some 2,000 acres as a parish airport. The request was granted and, in June 1970, the former Naval Air Station was officially renamed Acadiana Regional Airport.

The Port of New Iberia began in 1948, when a port commission was established and began plans to enlarge an old drainage canal into a 9-by-80-foot channel from the port site, about four miles from New Iberia, to the Intracoastal Canal. The only industry in operation there then was Joe's Shipyard.

In the middle 1960s, the Louisiana Department of Public Works and Iberia Port Commission saw the need for a deeper and wider channel, and it was enlarged to 12 by 125 feet. By 1968, ten firms were in operation at the port.

This article is copyrighted © by the Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser and is used with permission.  This web site was originated through a grant awarded to Carencro High School (Joel Hilbun/Bobbi Marino, Grant Administrators) by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund - 8(g).