Jeff Roux will present “Davis Crevasse 1884 — A Ship Steams Through It” at this month’s meeting of the German-Acadian Coast Historical and Genealogical Society at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 25, at St. John Library, 2920 U.S. Highway 51 in LaPlace. The program is free and open to the public.

“Many of our ancestors from Donaldsonville to Algiers and down the river to Myrtle Grove across to Grand Isle/Bayou Lafourche and all between were impacted by the crevasse and the floods of 1884,” Roux said.

The Davis Crevasse formed on March 8, 1884. The site, not marked by an historical marker, is located just downriver of Barton Avenue which connects Louisiana Highway 18 and U.S. Highway 90 in Luling in St Charles Parish and just upriver of the Davis Diversion. Roux said there are two ponds separated by the Union Pacific Railroad tracks remaining from the break.

“There was the usual flooding

and destruction associated with

this crevasse and some of the

other 174 in the Louisiana stretch of the Mississippi River in 1884,” he said.

In his 30 minute presentation Roux  will tie together the following unlikely series of events and

people: The New York Times,

a volcano eruption, the cause

of the crevasse, the steam powered sternwheeler “Patrol,” a steamboat voyage/journey from Cincinnati to New Orleans connecting via

rail to Galveston, an Iowa press delegation’s visit to New Orleans, 

a young civil engineer employed

by the Mississippi River Commis-sion, an experienced packet boat owner/pilot on the route from New Orleans to Grand Isle and the water depth in Des Allemands.

Roux is a graduate of Hahnville High School and Tulane University and lives in Ama with wife,

Jara.  He retired from the United States Navy in 1992 as a comman-der.

Roux and his wife’s family names include Zeringue, Friloux, Champagne, Dubroca, Vial, Tinney and Haydel.