Harahan: The Illinois Central's Company Town

Harahan, Louisiana, in Jefferson Parish just west of New Orleans, was essentially built by a railroad. The Illinois Central laid its repair shops and roundhouse here in eighteen ninety-four, and the settlement that grew around those facilities was incorporated as a village in nineteen twenty and a city in nineteen fifty-three. It was named for James Theodore Harahan, president of the Illinois Central from nineteen oh six to nineteen eleven.

Before the Huey P. Long Bridge opened in nineteen thirty-five, Harahan was one of the only places on the lower Mississippi where railcars could cross, with ferries hauling cars over the levee between Harahan and Avondale.