Mile 195.6 RBD — Bayou Goula Landing

Primitive Landing, accessible by gravel road off levee several hundred yards northeast of the town of Bayou Goula (La Hwy 405). Rough place. Not recommended for camping or overnight parking.

The Bayou Goula Indians occupied this point on the Lower Mississippi when Iberville and his party went up the river in 1699. They are considered part of the Muskogean people, and their name translates as “The Bayou People” -- a fitting name for South Louisiana. When the French colony was established on the lower reaches of the river, the land at Bayou Goula Point was granted to colonists who attempted to raise tobacco and indigo. The two crops were not entirely successful in the area, but the introduction of sugar cane culture in 1795 gave the planters a new economic base for the development of plantations that would later bring them great wealth.

In 1851 a steamboat collision in Bayou Goula Bend attracted wide attention. Both of the boats involved were well-known steamers. The accident occurred when the steamer Autocrat, northbound in the bend, met the steamer Magnolia, southbound at Bayou Goula. The rules for passing were perfectly clear, and when steamboat pilots followed them scrupulously, boats could pass even in a fog without danger. On this February morning in 1851, there was no fog. The pilots exchanged signals, and the two boats came together with a resounding crash. On board the Magnolia, which had suffered no great damage from the collision,ladies screamed and ran about the decks in panic. On board the Autocrat, which was sinking rapidly, the passengers were too busy to cry out. Forty or fifty men jumped overboard. The ladies scrambled to the highest part of the sinking boat and waited nervously for rescue. The wind was high, and when the Magnolia came alongside the sinking vessel to offer assistance, the wind caught the two boats and banged them together again. The crew of the Magnolia persisted, and all the people who had stayed on board the damaged Autocrat were saved. About 15 of the people who had jumped overboard were picked up, but it was estimated that 30 had drowned. Several days after the accident, one of the passengers favored a newspaper with an eyewitness account of the disaster, and ended with the generous remark that the accident had been "entirely unavoidable." This aroused indignation on both sides. The master of the Autocrat said bitterly that it was obvious that his boat would not have sunk if the Magnolia had not crashed into her without warning. The master of the Magnolia retorted that no one could possibly hold him responsible for what had happened. His boat, he said, was simply proceeding upstream in a perfectly normal way when the Autocrat had rushed across her bow. The unlucky boat had gone to the bottom as a result of her own pilot's stupidity and inept handling, he declared.

Bayou Goula Bend claimed other victims in later years. In 1882, the steamboat City of Greenville collided with the Laura Lee in the bend and sent it down to join the Autocrat at the bottom of the river. In 1908, the H. M. Carter, a sternwheel packet boat, had an old-fashioned boiler explosion at Bayou Goula and sank with the loss of ten lives. (Braggs)