History

When it comes to matters of tradition, no single day in the event-filled weekend can equal the historical significance of Sunday. The keeping of these Sunday customs create a link between the humble origin of the festival in 1936 and the mammoth celebration into which it has grown.

It all began over 80 years ago, when the placid port at Morgan City and Berwick received the first boatload of jumbo shrimp, fresh from the deepest waters ever fished by a small boat. The very first celebration was held, appropriately on Labor Day, when members of the local unit of Gulf Coast Seafood Producers & Trappers Association, in recognition of the holiday, staged a friendly labor demonstration that has come to be known as the first festival. There were frog and alligator hunters, shrimpers, crab fishermen, dock workers and oystermen parading in the streets. Of course, it was not the grand procession that it is today, but it was the first street parade nonetheless.

In 1937, Paul Acklen LeBlanc, chairman of the festival committee, spearheaded the first Blessing of the Fleet upon Berwick Bay. The Blessing was held to ask that God's graces be bestowed upon the fishermen and their sturdy craft.