Morgan City Travel Guide

Located on U. S. 90 between New Orleans and Lafayette, Morgan City sits on the banks of the great Atchafalaya River. Originally incorporated in l860 as Brasher in honor of the founding family who, in the 1850s, divided its sugar plantation into lots to form a townsite. In 1876, the community's name was changed to Morgan City in tribute to Charles Morgan, rail and steamship magnate who first dredged the Atchafalaya Bay Ship Channel to accommodate ocean-going vessels, and thus launched these Atchafalaya River communities on their route to success as port cities. The oil or more properly, the petroleum products industry is of extraordinary importance to the economies of the community, the state, and the nation. Local origins of the industry may be found in the discovery of oil on Belle Isle by A. F. Lucas in 1896. In 1914, oil wells were drilled on Avoca Island. Morgan City's "black gold rush" did not truly begin, however, until November 14, 1947, when a Kerr-McGee experimental offshore oil rig struck oil. This event marked the founding of the offshore oil industry, an industry vital to the security and well-being of the United States. At present, “offshore" drilling produces approximately sixteen percent of the free world’s total of oil and over six percent of the world's natural gas.