FORKED ISLAND : Vermilion Parish Towns & Cities, Louisiana
Submitted by Kathy LaCombe-Tell
Source: Jim Bradshaw; Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, 6/24/1997
Submitted August 2004

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FORKED ISLAND 

In the 1880s, when the first families came to settle Forked Island (Ile 
Fourchue), it was open country, a high ridge in the marsh, broken only 
by trails made by the herds of cattle that roamed the marsh. 

Forked Island was truly an island then with coulees forming three 
forks. People had to cross waterways on log rafts or travel through the 
marsh on horseback. Later, a pontoon bridge was built across the bayou 
to South Forked Island. 

Jules Schexnayder and his family were the first pioneers to settle in 
the area. They reared 22 children at their original homestead south of 
the Intracoastal Canal, and, not surprisingly, some of their 
descendants live in the area today. Later came the families of Onezime 
Gaspard, Theodore Rung, Helire Broussard, Remy Hebert, Lodias Stelly 
Sr., Columbus Dartez, Anatole Touchet, Arville Suire, and Oneal Sicily. 

Accounts of the early days claim that black bears roamed the area, and 
children were not allowed outside in the afternoons unless Momma was 
standing nearby with a loaded musket. 

Rice was planted on Forked Island around 1920. It was first cut by hand 
with sickles. At times there were as many as 40 men working in the same 
field. The land had been marshland, so reapers could not get to the 
rice. After dying, it was taken to the threshing machine, which was 
placed on higher ground. The rice grains were poured into burlap bags 
of 165 to 200 pounds. The harvested rice was transported on barges to 
Abbeville via a small canal that has since been dredged to form part of 
the Intracoastal Canal and then up the Vermilion River. 

The first road to Forked Island was built about 1917 by men using 
little more than shovels and wheelbarrows. A new and better road was 
built in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration under 
Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. 

That road was the primary road for years until the Louisiana 
Legislature in 1970 demanded improved hurricane evacuation routes for 
low-lying areas of south Louisiana. Ground was broken in December 1973 
for the Forked Island Bridge, a high level fixed span across the 
Intracoastal Canal. 

School in Forked Island was first taught in & room in the home of Mrs. 
(Mim) Nelson Harrington. A one-room school was built in 1910, northwest 
of the Intracoastal Canal, where the old pontoon bridge was located. 
The school was later enlarged to two rooms, then three rooms. 

In 1936, the Forked Island Elementary school was built on the south 
side of the Intracoastal Canal and classes were held there until 1982, 
when the elementary schools of Forked Island and Cow Island were 
combined into the Forked Island-E. Broussard Elementary School in Cow 
Island. 

Forked Island had no church until 1933. Church services were held at 
the school on Sunday mornings. Immaculate Conception Church was built 
in 1933 and a new one was built in 1965. 

Forked Island's first store, that of Mrs. Harrington, was located 
northwest of the Intracoastal Canal. Shortly after Mrs. Harrington's 
store opened, the Ducre Prejean Store and the Keno Nunez Store opened 
in the same general area. Martin Primeaux opened the first store south 
of the Intracoastal Canal in the early 1920s. Other stores which 
followed there were those of Saul Prejean, Gaston Dartez, and Lodias 
Stelly Jr.