Avoca Island is an

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

located off the

Intracoastal Waterway The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) is a inland waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States, running from Massachusetts southward along the Atlantic Seaboard and around the southern tip of Florida, then following t ...

in the Morgan City Bayous near Morgan City, Louisiana,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It is home to many

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

species. Part of the island is industrialized following the slow expansion of the city. Over 400 head of

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

reside on the island and

Jim Bowie James Bowie ( ) ( – March 6, 1836) was a 19th-century American pioneer, slave smuggler and trader, and soldier who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He was among the Americans who died at the Battle of the Alamo. Stories of h ...

once herded cattle here in the nineteenth century. John Thompson received Avoca Island as a land bounty in 1870. The federal government gave no bounty land for service after 1855, but Union veterans of the Civil War received special homestead rights in 1870, when an amendment to the 1862 Homestead Act gave them the right to claim 160 acres within railroad grant areas (other homesteaders got only 80). Thompson and his family worked the land as fishers, hunters, and trappers until his death in 1915. His widow, unable to pay the taxes on the land,lost the land shortly thereafter. The island is also home to the Avoca Duck Club, founded in 1937. After the discovery of oil, the African American residents of Avoca Island were kicked off by officials and their houses dozed. Oil companies were then allowed to drill for oil on the island. The island today is home to only one resident with one ferry that brings people on and off the island. Alongside oil companies, a few private hunting clubs also have interests there.

References

Islands of Louisiana Landforms of St. Mary Parish, Louisiana {{Louisiana-geo-stub