MORGAN CITY — Oil has been the main moneymaker in Morgan City for nearly 80 years. 

Roger Beaudean, the executive director of the Atchafalaya Intracoastal Coalition, said it all started in 1947. 

"In 1947, the first offshore oil well was drilled by Kerr McGee, and it was actually 45 miles offshore," Beaudean said.,

After striking oil in the '40s, a new wave of businesses brought a boom for Morgan City's economy. 

"You had the shipyards, you had the fabrication yards, you had the hard well stores, you had the pipe yards. Everything that went into drilling a well, obviously, came right out of Morgan City," Beaudean said.