Henderson, LA

Henderson is a St. Martin Parish town at the edge of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin, west of the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge and inside the Lafayette metropolitan area. The 2020 census counted 1,617 residents. Interstate 10 is the big regional route, carrying traffic across the basin toward Baton Rouge and Lafayette, while local roads run past bayous, levees, and farm country. St. Martin Parish schools serve local children, and the town’s ordinary errands are tied to the parish’s larger road and water network each day.

The thing to know about Henderson is that water is part of the address. The Atchafalaya Basin brings floodplain, cypress swamp, fishing access, and seasonal high water close to town, while Bayou Teche and the older Acadian communities of St. Martin Parish sit nearby. Henderson’s role is practical: a place to live, work, reach the basin, and get onto I-10. Its local feel comes from that meeting of a highway corridor with the region’s large wetland landscape.