Everything about Bayou La Batre totally explained
Bayou La Batre (locally [ˌbaɪləˈbætʃɹi]) is a city in
Mobile County,
Alabama,
United States. It is included in the
Mobile metropolitan statistical area. At the 2000 census, the population was 2,313. According to the 2005
U.S. Census estimates, the city had a population of 2,725.
Bayou La Batre is a fishing village with a seafood-processing harbor for
fishing boats and shrimp boats. The local Chamber of Commerce has described the city as the "Seafood Capital of Alabama" for packaging seafood from hundreds of fishing boats.
Bayou La Batre was the first permanent settlement on the south
Mobile County mainland and was founded in 1786, when French-born
Joseph Bouzage (Bosarge) [1733-1795] was awarded a 1,259-acre Spanish land grant on the West Bank of the bayou (see history below). The modern City of Bayou La Batre was incorporated in 1955.
Bayou La Batre was featured in the
1994 movie
Forrest Gump and the book upon which it's based. In April 2005, Disney Studios launched a secretly built pirate ship, the
Black Pearl, out of Bayou La Batre for filming sequels to .
On
August 29,
2005, the area was devastated by
Hurricane Katrina, which produced the largest storm surge ever recorded in the area, reaching nearly 16 feet and pushing many shrimp boats and the cargo ship
M/V Caribbean Clipper onto shore (see details below).
Geography
Bayou La Batre is located at (30.403253, -88.248117).
According to the
U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.2
square miles (10.8
km²).4.0 square miles (10.4 km²) of it's land, and 0.2 square miles (0.4 km²) of it (3.59%) is water.
History
Mobile County mainland and was founded in 1786, when
Joseph Bouzage (Bosarge) [1733-95] moved into the area and was awarded a 1,259-acre Spanish land grant on the bayou's west bank.
Born in
Poitiers, France, Joseph Bouzage came to the Gulf Coast circa 1760, married Catherine Louise Baudreau (Boudreau) on June 5, 1762, and was the father of seven children, including one son,
Jean Baptiste.
Demographics
As of the
census of 2000, there were 2,313 people, 769 households, and 599 families residing in the city. The
population density was 573.9 people per square mile (221.6/km²). There were 845 housing units at an average density of 209.7/sq mi (81.0/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 52.44%
White, 10.25%
Black or
African American, 0.26%
Native American, 33.29%
Asian, 0.43%
Pacific Islander, 0.95% from
other races, and 2.38% from two or more races. 1.90% of the population were
Hispanic or
Latino of any race. The large Asian population is attributable to a large influx of
Vietnamese American shrimpers as immigrants following the
Vietnam War as well as
Cambodian and
Laotian refugees and their children. Bayou la Batre was a popular destination for such immigrants because it fostered and continues to foster a similar shrimping industry to that of Vietnam.
There were 769 households, out of which 37.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.8% were
married couples living together, 17.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.0% were non-families. 17.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.01, and the average family size was 3.40.
The age distribution was 29.9% under the age of 18, 11.1% from 18 to 24, 26.8% from 25 to 44, 21.0% from 45 to 64, and 11.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.5 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $24,539, and the median income for a family was $27,580. Males had a median income of $22,847 versus $14,042 for females. The
per capita income for the city was $9,928. About 22.9% of families and 28.2% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 35.9% of those under age 18 and 17.7% of those age 65 or over.
Education
Bayou La Batre is served by the
Mobile County Public School System. The city has Booth (formerly Alba) Elementary School Alba Middle School, and Secondary public school Alma Bryant High in
Irvington, where all the high school students attend. Additionally, a small number of city residents' children would attend Dixon Elementary in Irvington. Bryant High School also encompasses students from outside the Bayou La Batre-Coden area from neighboring Grand Bay, Irvington, St. Elmo, and Dauphin Island.
Both Alma Bryant and Booth Elementary are located on the northernmost edge of the city. Bryant, built in 1998, slightly delayed by Hurricane Georges, and Booth, built in 2006, delayed by Hurricane Katrina, are located on Hurricane Boulevard. Both schools' students were (in part) located in what is now Alba Middle School further south in Bayou La Batre. Alba High School first combined with Grand Bay High School in 1998 in the newly built, centrally located Bryant High, located on 16th Section land (land dedicated for school purposes). Alba Middle (which was in great part located in portable classrooms and was a part of the high School campus, as was Grand Bay Middle) took over the high school building, greatly relieving overcrowding. Similarly, the Alba Elementary Campus which shared land with the middle school, while being mostly autonomous, also became part of Alba Middle School. Ironically, and perhaps serindipitously as an interesting omage to the past, Alba and Grand Bay Middle are still the focal point of Bus Routes for all school buses for Bryant High, those buses shared in grades 6-12 as an excellent cost-saving effort to not overlap routes uselessly for the separate schools.
In December of 2007, a new library was opened to serve the area's Asian-American community. The library is located on Wintzell Avenue in the Bayou La Batre office of Boat People SOS, a national group that assists Vietnamese-Americans. The Mobile County Commission gave $2,500. The library will be used as a place where elderly immigrants can master computer skills, children can practice their Vietnamese after school, and day laborers can surf the Web after work.
Film and book references
Bayou La Batre is mentioned in the film
Forrest Gump and in
Winston Groom's book of the same name on which the movie is based as the home of Forrest's army buddy Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue, and later as the home of Forrest Gump himself during his time as a shrimp boat captain.
Shipbuilding
Bayou La Batre is a center for shipbuilding. In 2005, crews of
Disney Studios secretly built a 130-foot pirate ship, the
Black Pearl, at Steiner Shipyard in Bayou La Batre; the pitch-black ship was actually a huge wooden prop built on top of a modern 96-foot-long steel utility boat. and higher waves that engulfed Bayou La Batre and pushed over 23 shrimp boats and the cargo ship
M/V Caribbean Clipper onto shore. The captain rode out Katrina on the 179-foot cargo ship, owned by Caribbean Shipping Inc., and the ship was returned to sea six months later, using a large crane. The Santa Monica City Council approved loaning Bayou La Batre 18 vehicles, including six pickups, two trucks with large cranes, utility vehicles with smaller cranes, a dump truck, street sweepers, a riding lawnmower, and six chainsaws.
[ The equipment was used to help remove debris and fishing boats from downtown; however, the larger shrimp boats remained in town for months.]
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bayou La Batre'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://bayou_la_batre__alabama.totallyexplained.com">Bayou La Batre, Alabama Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
