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The City of New Iberia is located on U.S. Highway 90 between New Orleans and Lafayette on the banks of the historic Bayou Teche.
It is the parish seat of Iberia Parish, and was founded in 1779 and incorporated in 1839.
New Iberia is in the heart of Acadiana, and home to the Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival each September. The population is about 14,000 residents, and the Zip Codes are 70560 and 70563.
 Lovely home on Bayou Teche, New Iberia Louisiana
(photograph by the author)
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We've visited New Iberia for decades. Area attractions include the beautiful Shadows on the Teche plantation home. It was built in 1831-1834 for sugarcane planter David Weeks and his wife Mary C. Weeks.
A simple porticoed facade of eight columns marks the exterior of the facade, and help to support a second floor verandah. The Shadows was built on the edge of one of Weeks's sugarcane plantations.
Many other lovely, historic homes are located along Bayou Teche, and throughout the city.
Nearby Avery Island is home of the world-famous Tabasco Sauce and the oldest salt mine in North America, and Jungle Gardens. The island was named after the Avery family, who settled there in the 1830s. But even the American Indians in the area knew about the massive underground salt dome.
Avery Island is very near the Gulf of Mexico, only three miles inland from Vermilion Bay. Avery Island remains a natural, sub-tropical paradise, home to massive like oaks, azaleas, camellias, and exotic plants from around the world.
Before the Civil War, Edmund McIlhenny joined the Avery family by marrying Mary Eliza Avery, daughter of Daniel Dudley Avery and Sarah Marsh Avery. In 1868, McIlhenny founded McIlhenny Company and began manufacturing Tabasco brand pepper sauce and shortly aftwards received patent for his sauce processing formula.
Tabasco sauce today is made from the same family formula, using tabasco peppers, vinegar, and salt, and aged in white oak barrels for three years. It has a hot, spicy flavor, and is popular across the USA and the world. Tours of the Tabasco plant on Avery Island are popular and fun!
Thousands of birds make their home on Avery Island, during the year and the winter months as well.
Visitors, eco-tourists, and bird watchers come from far and wide to see the bird rookeries, and alligators in the ponds and lagoons.
Bayou Teche is a 125 mile long waterway, beginning to the north at Port Barre where it draws water from Bayou Courtableau, and flowing to the south through the towns of Leonville, Arnaudville, Breaux Bridge, St. Martinville, and then to New Iberia.
From here, it continues its journey to south, through Jeanerette, Berwick, Baldwin, Franklin, and finally to the point where the bayou meets the Atchafalaya River near Patterson.
The name "Teche" is a Chitimacha Indian word meaning "snake", related to the bayou's twists and turns resembling a snake's movement.
See New Iberia map below.
Learn about Louisiana crawfishing, the crawfishing industry,
crawfish photographs, crawfish season, and more!
Shown below are a few photos taken during trips to New Iberia and Avery Island, plus some historic postcards from the Louisiana Postcard Collection. |
