The New International Encyclopædia/New Iberia

NEW IBE′RIA. A town and the parish seat of Iberia Parish, La., 12.5 miles west of New Orleans, at the head of navigation on the Bayou Teche, and on the Southern Pacific Railroad (Map: Louisiana, D 3). This section has many natural features of interest, and is the scene of part of Longfellow's Evangeline. Avery's Island is famous for its deposits of rock salt. A Federal Government post-office is (1903) in course of construction, and the city has a public high school library, a fine city hall, and a public market. New Iberia is the centre of a productive agricultural section devoted to the cultivation of sugar-cane, cotton, rice, corn, potatoes, small fruits, and vegetables. It is also of considerable importance as an industrial centre, its establishments including shipyards, foundries and machine shops, a knitting mill, and manufactories of cypress lumber, shingles, sash, doors, and blinds, cypress cisterns and tanks, cotton-seed products, soap, tabasco sauce, pressed and common brick, wagons, and carts. The water-works and electric-light plant are owned and operated by the municipality. Population, in 1890, 3447; in 1900, 6815.