The Vermilion River runs through the heart of my hometown of Lafayette, LA. It was created when the ancient course of the Mississippi River, which originally ran through the area that is now Lafayette, shifted from west to east and left a channel through the plains.

While originally home to the Atakapa-Ishak and Canneci (Lipan Apache) Tribes and the competing Choctaw Tribes, between the years 1765 and 1785 the first great wave of immigration occurred in South Louisiana and Acadian exiles set...