1935 Map of Johnsons Bayou

About this map

Junius Ridge and Hamilton Ridge rise slightly above the sprawling marshlands of the Cameron Parish coast, providing the essential dry ground for settlement along the Gulf of Mexico. This 1934 survey, compiled in part from Air Corps aerial photographs, reveals a landscape defined by an intricate network of waterways like Deep Bayou, Hog Gully, and Starks Canal. Human activity is concentrated along the east-west elevations of Smith Ridge, where the local community center is anchored by the Johnsons Bayou PO, the Johnsons Bayou School, and the Peveto Cemetery. The mapping of the Magnolia-Vacuum Canal suggests the early industrial influence of drainage or petroleum exploration on this low-lying coastal prairie. This survey captures a specific moment in the geography of the southwestern Louisiana coast before later twentieth-century coastal erosion and canal dredging further altered the bayou system.