Lafourche

Formed March 31, 1807 (5^th parish)

Lafourche Parish (97,552), Thibodaux (15,929)                

A stately columned masonry Beaux Arts and Baroque structure built in 1856 sits on city block between Second and Third Streets and Green and Maronge Streets.  The building was enlarged in 1903, 1951, and 1958 and renovated in 1959.  There were 1818 and 1846 courthouses built in Thibodaux, the only parish seat.  Lafourche was an original parish (5^th parish) dating from March 31, 1807.  Louisiana State Highway 20 is one block north of the facility.  John Lyall, F. Mitchell, and A. B. Thibodeaux are the building designers.  A Parish Administration Building has been added from a former library.  The parish was named for Bayou Lafourche which gets its name from the French word “the fork.”  Henry Schuyler Thibodaux gave the land for the parish seat and was honored with its name. 

Lafourche Parish government consists of a President, a sheriff, a clerk, a treasurer, and a coroner (executive).  It has 9 Council Members (legislative.)  Five District Court Judges and Four Justice Court Judges serve Lafourche Parish (judicial.) The parish is in south Louisiana to the southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana and to the southeast of Lafayette. Louisiana.  Numerous bayous and estuaries are in this parish.  The Gulf of Mexico is the southern border to the parish.  The parish center is 20.8 miles East-Southeast of Thibodaux nearer Mathews.  The parish is surrounded clockwise by Saint John the Baptist, Saint Charles, and Jefferson parishes and the Gulf of Mexico and Terrebonne, Assumption, and Saint James parishes. 

The area of the parish is 1472 square miles.  It is 6 out of 64 in the state.  It ranks 15 out of 64 in population in the state.  It has a density of 66.3 persons per square mile making it 24 out of 64 in the state.  Lafourche Parish has 20.7% of its population in its incorporated areas.  United States Highway 90 crosses northeast to southwest, St. Charles Parish to Terrebonne Parish.  The parish is a sweeping arch with Thibodeaux in the extreme northwest part.  Thibodaux is parish seat and the largest city.  It is 16.3% of the parish population.  The parish is pronounced LA-FORE-SH.  The parish seat is pronounced TEE-BOE-DOE.  This parish is in the Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux Metropolitan Statistical Area.