St. Maurice, Louisiana/Morganza Floodway

St. Maurice, Louisiana/Morganza Floodway. Mississippi Riverwalk. , A. St. Maurice, Louisiana , Mile 271.5 AHP, St. Maurice Landing was the final resting place for one of the last great 19th Century riverboats. The J.M. White, 320 feet long, and lavishly decorated in the heavy ornamental style known as "steamboat gothic" appeared on the river in 1878. Hard times and declining river traffic limited the boats success but the vessel traveled the river until it caught fire and sank at St. Maurice in December of 1886. For years, the wreck was a river landmark until a sandbar finally buried it. St. Maurice has since been cut off from the west bank and is a towhead in the river channel., B. Morganza Floodway , Mile 285.7 AHP, The levee system at Morganza was noted for its frequent and disastrous crevasses during the 1800's. One monumental gap appeared in 1874 and remained open for ten years. The Morganza Floodway and its control structure were completed in 1954 to divert flood waters from the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya Basin to the south. The concrete control structure is located near the southeast bend of Raccourci Old River, and channels the overflow between control levees on the flood was first used during the flood of 1973, relieving pressure on the damaged Old River control structure upstream and protecting the downriver levees.