Survey of Atchafalaya Bay

Turn of the century efforts to protect one of the Mississippi’s many tributaries.

“Preliminary examination and survey, respectively, of Atchafalaya Bay from the mouth of Atchafalaya River to deep water in the Gulf of Mexico.” – pg. 1.

Executed by Assistant Engineer P.H. Thomson under the direction of Major H.M. Adams of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, this large folding survey map was published in Washington, D.C. by the Government Printing Office. Issued as part of a 1900 Congressional volume on War Department civil works, the sheet documents federal efforts to survey and improve shallow navigation channels along the south-central Louisiana coast at the turn of the century.

The expansive chart provides a detailed hydrographic overview of Atchafalaya Bay, capturing a crucial transitional era in the bay’s geographical and economic history. It prominently contrasts the existing channel dredged by the private Morgan’s Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Company (Morgan Line) against a proposed, far more direct federal channel engineered straight through the White Shell Keys toward deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. The surrounding coastal landscape is dominated by vast, low-lying coastal marshes – the vital timber and fishing grounds of St. Mary and Terrebonne Parishes. Maritime navigation aids are clearly identified, highlighted by the offshore Southwest Reef Lighthouse (“S.W. Reef Lt.”), which guided shallow-draft cypress timber rafts, cotton schooners, and steamships into Morgan City.