Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, July 29, 1997

Atchafalaya Railroad was Engineering Feat

by Jim Bradshaw

It was in 1900 that railroad laborers, armed with little more than hand shovels and steam-driven piled-rivers, began to lay track through the Atchafalaya Basin. The goal was to cross 55 miles of swamp and link Lafayette to Baton Rouge by rail. It would take years to do, but it happened. The railroad ran roughly parallel to the present Swamp Expressway, and remnants of it can be seen here and there from the highway. It was the Atchafalaya community's only connection with the outside world.

Construction began simultaneously in Lafayette and across the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge. The plan was for the rails to meet at the Atchafalaya, where a 232-foot-long swivel bridge would cross the river. The line would end at the town of Anchorage, above Port Barre, and cars would be ferried from there across the Mississippi River.

Dirt to build up the western rights-of-way was excavated in Lafayette from a place now known as Larrabie Pit. When the line was finally completed in 1908, it was two-thirds bridges (48 miles) and one-third embankment. It would cost millions of dollars to maintain, which is probably why it never once turned a profit in more than 20 years of operation.

The train ran from Lafayette to Baton Rouge in the morning and then made the return trip in the afternoon. About 20 families lived along the river, and the train brought additional workers and visitors to the community.

The railroad made it possible to bring in ice for storage of fish caught in the Atchafalaya Basin, and it was around this fishing industry that the community was formed. George Westfall was the first railroad agent at the place. A depot was built there about 1912, about the same time that a post office was established. Thomas Martin was the first postmaster.

Mrs. Henry Guidry reminisced about the community in a 1975 newspaper interview.

"There were quite a few people who lived there," she recalled. "They lived along the woods of the Atchafalaya and brought their fish in boats to numerous buyers.

"Henry would scrape the fish and set them in tubs and ice them down, then someone would come and buy it.

"There was a small school, but no church. We had to go to church at Butte la Rose. Father Borel would come to a house and we'd get there by a small boat. To travel from Breaux Bridge, we would go by train."

Henry Guidry was also the bridge tender, opening and closing the railroad span so that boats could go up and down the river.

Several fish companies operated from Atchafalaya in those days, including the (Thomas) Martin Fish Company, the (Thomas) Bernard Fish Company, Fernand Dupuis' Atchafalaya Fish Company, and others. These companies would send boats up and down the river picking up fish from fishermen. Some of the boats could hold tons of fish. They would also carry mail, groceries, and other household items.

The train bought ice from Lafayette until the 1920's, when the Dupuis Ice House was built at Atchafalaya. It produced enough ice for all of the fishing companies.

According to old accounts, the fishing industry brought in as much as $250,000 a year between 1914 and 1926, and, additionally provided jobs for dock workers, drivers of the fish boats and railroad maintenance workers.

In 1917, the United States entered World War 1, and troop trains and solid strings of tank cars carrying oil and petroleum products began to run steadily through the Atchafalaya Basin. It was probably because of this that a young German sign painter turned up at Atchafalaya, taking what work he could find. Swamp dwellers became suspicious and told the government about him. Federal agents soon arrived and jailed the man on spy charges. He was apparently monitoring troop, weapon and supply movements along the swamp railroad.

That would not be Atchafalaya's only contact with federal agents. According to Kenneth Delcambre's history of the Atchafalaya community, "(During Prohibition) notorious gangsters such as Al Capone had their men running the booze from New Orleans to Chicago and all points in between. The Basin was used in the same fashion that Jean Lafitte used it .... there were many hidden waterways....

"In 1931, a speedboat and a seagoing tug were confiscated by the Federal authorities. Both boats were being used by the Capone gang. The V speedboat ... consisted of a decked bow, a windshield, and an inboard engine ... (on the tug) the interior was immaculate, however every door and counter had hidden compartments in which cocaine was found. An auxiliary fuel tank had 200-proof moonshine and if the tank would have been tested, the shine could have probably run the engines.

In the 1920's, government levee construction began to "play hell" with the railroad and the swamp communities it served.

Levees going up to protect Breaux Bridge, Cecilia, Arnaudvillie and the western ridge of the basin began to contain Atchafalaya River overflows -- causing it to deposit more and more silt in the middle of the basin.

At Butte La Rose, 35 feet of siltation took place, Atchafalaya got 30 feet, Melville got 43. The silt was hard and well packed, and forced the water to go higher as silt built up. Folks at Atchafalaya just jacked up their stilt-borne houses to stay ahead of the water. The railroad couldn't do that to its rails. Sometimes the trains ran in 2 or more feet of water. The trains began pushing an empty flat car in front of the engine--just to be sure that the tracks were still there.

The Flood of 1927 did in the Atchafalaya community. It caused considerable damage up and down the Atchafalaya and weakened the railroad bridge so much that Southern Pacific was forced to dismantle it. The company continued the line for a few more years, ferrying passengers, freight, and fish across the river and loading them back onto another train on the other side. But heavy silting in the basin began to play havoc with the rails and the line was soon abandoned. A few people remained until the 1950's, traveling by boat through the Basin, but they eventually left and Atchafalaya became a memory. The Atchafalaya post office was closed in 1959.

Henry Guidry, the bridge tender and fisherman moved to the edge of the basin and opened a restaurant there. A community grew up around it and we know it today as Henderson.

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).