Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, January 27, 1998

Railroad opened up sleepy town of Vermilionville

by Jim Bradshaw

In 1880, Vermilionville entered the modern industrialized age with the arrival of the steam locomotive and the beginnings of development of the railroad. Before all was said and done, Lafayette would be the Hub City of a network of rails heading west to Texas, east across the Atchafalaya Basin to Baton Rouge, south to New Orleans, and north to Alexandria.

The expansion of railroading across the south and its eventual appearance in small communities such as Vermilionville brought about great changes in technology, industry, farming, and society as a whole.

Rural towns and villages became centers for the distribution of goods and tank products, attracting people into the cities and away from the outlying areas.

The story of the impact of railroading in Lafayette begins with Alexandre Mouton, former Louisiana governor and U.S. senator. By the 1850s, he had retired and moved to his estate, Ile Copal, on the Vermilion River.

Mouton, who had always held a great interest in railroads and their development, represented Lafayette Parish in 1852 at a convention of railroad enthusiasts who were summoned to New Orleans by wealthy Crescent City businessmen. The businessmen wanted to build a railroad westward from New Orleans.

As a result of the convention, the New Orleans, Opelousas , and Great Western Railroad was chartered in March 1851. The delegates heard a Mr. Payne who expressed astonishment that so beautiful and fertile a country as found in the Attakapas District was unknown." He said that this was because the area was "cut off from direct communication with the Mississippi River and New Orleans by swamps, trembling prairies, lakes, and tortuous bayous."

Mr. Payne said that he could fix all of that with a railroad, and that it would only cost $10,000 a mile to build it. The folks at the convention thought the money could be raised, and told Payne to get started on surveying a route.

Groundbreaking for the railway took place in October 1852, with the first depot built at Algiers, across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.

That was the easy part. The rails had to cross miles and miles of swamps to get across south Louisiana. The yellow fever epidemic of 1853 slowed progress, and, by January 1854, only 24 miles of track had been laid, at a cost of more than $900,000. Work stopped, and the debate began again. Some people thought that it was impossible to build a railroad across the so-called " trembling prairies." Others said that, even if track could be laid, they would not risk their lives by riding across the swamps for fear that the road would sink under the weight of the train.

But new contracts were let, and the work began again, and in 1857, the track reached Morgan City, then called Brashear City. As one of the railroad builders put: "Those who now cross these swamps and prairies in luxurious coaches, flying at the rate of thirty or forty miles per hour, do not think of hardships and trials of the locating and construction engineer and others who led through the wilderness." He recalled how he "waded through those swamps and prairies tremblantes and swam the bayous amid mosquitoes, snakes and alligators, whose domain had seldom, if ever before, been invaded."

The road was stopped at Berwick Bay while Confederate and Yankee fought over its route during the Civil War. When the battling was done, the rails and rolling stock were in such disrepair that the New Orleans, Opelousas, and Great Western was formed into bankruptcy. An auction for the sale of the company took place on April 15, 1869, with the sale going to Charles Morgan, a New York industrialist who operated a steamboat company.

Morgan changed the name of the company to Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad. Although the bed had been prepared between Berwick Bay and Vermilionville, Morgan couldn't finish building the route. After several attempts he sold the right of way west of Berwick Bay to the New Orleans, Mobile, and Texas Railroad. By the next year, this company had also failed and had to abandon the railroad bed leading to Vermilionville.

It was not until six years later that construction began again, when, on June 19, 1878, a holding company devised by Morgan bought back all the holdings of the New Orleans, Mobile and Texas. The company became known as Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Co.

Although Morgan died shortly after organizing the holding company, it resumed work on the line, and, in March 1880, the first work trains arrived in Vermilionville.

The first engine in Vermilionville was the Sabine. It was one of the original work engines of the New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western, and had been built in 1854. The engine was retired from the railroad in 1907 and put to use in a sugar refinery in New Iberia.

In 1923, the Southern Pacific Railroad bought the engine and donated it to the City of Lafayette as an historical monument. It stood near the railroad depot in Lafayette until 1942, when it was scrapped so that its metal could be used in building machines to fight World War II.

By 1881, the railroad line ran completely through Vermilionville and south Louisiana, connecting New Orleans to Houston. After lines were completed farther to the Pacific Ocean, Vermilionville served as the easternmost depot for two Southern Pacific transcontinental trains, the Atlantic Express and the Pacific Express.

Vermilionville served as division headquarters for the Louisiana and Texas Railroad, resulting in the expansion of facilities in the community, including a roundhouse and a freight yard. By 1895, the payroll of the railroad included more than 50 men.

According to historian J. Philip Dismukes in his book, "A History of the Development of Lafayette, Louisiana," these middle income employees "brought with them new ideas in the areas of community and civic matters" which helped move the young community forward.