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1892 Map of Houma

Name: 1892 Topographic Map of Houma
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1898
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1898

About this map

Houma serves as the focal point of this late 19th-century survey, situated at the junction of several critical waterways in the swampy interior of south Louisiana. The landscape is defined by its sprawling bayou network, which dictated the settlement patterns long before modern drainage. Narrow ribbons of habitable land follow the natural levees of Bayou Lafourche and Bayou Terrebonne, where small clusters of buildings and fields are clustered along the water's edge.

The infrastructure of the 1890s reveals a transition from traditional water transport to rail, as the Southern Pacific Railroad cuts through the northern reach of the sheet near Raceland. Between the primary bayous, vast wetlands and open waters like Field Lake and Lake Long dominate the terrain, illustrating the watery isolation of early bayou communities like Lockport. Smaller distributaries such as Bayou Black and Bayou Little Caillou reach southward into the marsh, marking the early homesteads and canals of the Delta region.