Southwest Reef Lighthouse

The Southwest Reef Lighthouse is one of Louisiana's most distinctive historic structures — a cast-iron screw-pile lighthouse that originally sat on iron legs driven into the Gulf floor at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River. Built in 1856, these offshore platform lighthouses were engineering marvels of their era, designed to flex with Gulf currents rather than resist them.

The lighthouse has been relocated to the Morgan City waterfront and restored as a museum piece. It stands as a reminder of the maritime history of southern Louisiana before the offshore oil industry arrived, when the channels and bayous of the Atchafalaya were busy with fishing vessels and cargo boats navigating the shallow coastal waters.

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Southwest Reef Light was built in 1856 to guide vessels navigating the maze of channels and sandbars at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River. It replaced a lightship that had been stationed there for a decade — itself a sign of how difficult these waters were to mark permanently. The lighthouse was moved to Morgan City's waterfront for preservation after being decommissioned, where it now stands far from its original offshore location.