Avery Island, Louisiana

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Avery Island is a salt dome located in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, United States, about three miles (5 km) inland from Vermilion Bay, which in turn opens onto the Gulf of Mexico.

Avery Island, Louisiana, as seen from a distance across a sugarcane field.

Avery Island was created by the upwelling of ancient evaporite (salt) deposits that exist beneath the Mississippi River Delta region. These upwellings are known as "salt domes". Avery island is one of five salt dome islands that rise above the flat Louisiana Gulf coast.^{[citation needed]}

At its highest point, the island is about 160 feet (49 m) above sea level;^{[citation needed]} it covers about 2,200 acres (9 km²) and is about 2.5 miles (4 km) across at its widest point.

It is surrounded on all sides by bayous (narrow, slow-moving muddy rivers), salt marsh, and swampland; it sits about 140 miles (225 km) west of New Orleans. The island was formerly known as Petite Anse Island. (Petite Anse means "Little Cove" in Cajun French.)

Avery Island is famous as the home of Tabasco sauce, which has been manufactured on the island by McIlhenny Company since 1868.

The island is also the site of one of the world's largest salt mines, currently operated by the Cargill corporation.

Salt extraction has occurred on the island for at least several hundred years, the first benefactors of its salt deposit being American Indians who boiled briny spring water to extract the mineral. In 1862 during the Civil War the Avery family (for whom the island eventually was named) discovered extremely pure solid rock salt only a short depth below the island's surface. Because of a Union blockade, the South had no reliable source for this valuable commodity. As a result, the Averys quickly mined the deposit in order to supply much of the lower South with salt.

In November 1862 two Union gunboats and a transport ship attacked the island in an attempt to capture the salt works, but they were repelled by Confederate forces under General Richard Taylor. The mines were finally captured by Union Army forces in 1863.

Avery Island is home to Jungle Gardens and a well-known bird sanctuary called Bird City, where each spring thousands of snowy white egrets and other migratory water birds return to nest.

Access to the island is via toll road.

The island is also featured as the title of a Neutral Milk Hotel album.

Coordinates: 29°53′N 91°54′W

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