Taft was a

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...

(CDP) in

St. Charles Parish St. Charles Parish (french: Paroisse de Saint-Charles) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2020 census, its population was 52,549. The parish seat is Hahnville and the most populous community is Luling. The parish was ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, United States, located on the west bank of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. According to the 2000 census, Taft had a total

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of zero.

History

Taft is the location of a

phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...

processing facility owned by

The Mosaic Company The Mosaic Company is a Fortune 500 company based in Tampa, Florida which mines phosphate, potash, and collects urea for fertilizer, through various international distribution networks, and Mosaic Fertilizantes. It is the largest U.S. producer of ...

(formerly IMC-Agrico); the

Dow Dow or DOW may refer to: Business * Dow Jones Industrial Average, or simply the Dow, a stock market index * Dow Inc., an American commodity chemical company ** Dow Chemical Company, a subsidiary, an American multinational chemical corporation ...

Union Carbide Union Carbide Corporation is an American chemical corporation wholly owned subsidiary (since February 6, 2001) by Dow Chemical Company. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers befo ...

Taft/Star Petrochemical Plant, which produces a variety of organic chemicals such as

acrolein Acrolein (systematic name: propenal) is the simplest unsaturated aldehyde. It is a colorless liquid with a piercing, acrid smell. The smell of burnt fat (as when cooking oil is heated to its smoke point) is caused by glycerol in the burning fa ...

acrylic acid Acrylic acid (IUPAC: propenoic acid) is an organic compound with the formula CH2=CHCOOH. It is the simplest unsaturated carboxylic acid, consisting of a vinyl group connected directly to a carboxylic acid terminus. This colorless liquid has a ...

, and

acetaldehyde Acetaldehyde (IUPAC systematic name ethanal) is an organic chemical compound with the formula CH3 CHO, sometimes abbreviated by chemists as MeCHO (Me = methyl). It is a colorless liquid or gas, boiling near room temperature. It is one of the mos ...

; and part of the

Waterford Nuclear Generating Station The Waterford Steam Electric Station, Unit 3, also known as Waterford 3, is a nuclear power plant located on a plot in Killona, Louisiana, in St. Charles Parish, about west of New Orleans. This plant has one Combustion Engineering two-loop p ...

owned by

Entergy Corporation Entergy Corporation is a Fortune 500 integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations in the Deep South of the United States. Entergy is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, and gene ...

. Virtually all of the land is now zoned as heavy industrial. Taft was the original site of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church, which served Taft, Killona and Hahnville. The church was built in 1877, and in 1963, it moved to Hahnville. The cemetery is still in Taft and is still used as a burial ground by the church. It is bounded on three sides by the Dow chemical facilities. Population was 700 when the first post office opened in 1905, and it remained in operation until 1967. By 1977, only 36 people lived in Taft. In December, 1982, a major explosion occurred at the Union Carbide facility about 30 miles from

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, causing nearly 17,000 people to evacuate.

Geography

According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

, the CDP has a total area of , of which is land and is water. The CDP is located on the

Demographics

As of the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

of 2000, there were no people living in the CDP.

References

External links

IMC Agrico suspends phosphate production in Taft
Former census-designated places in Louisiana Ghost towns in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana Populated places disestablished in 2000 2000 disestablishments in Louisiana {{Louisiana-geo-stub

History

Geography

Demographics

See also

References

External links