UPDATED WITH STORY: Exhibit explores 90 years of festival history

What’s your favorite Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival memory?
Chances are that it won’t go back nearly a century to the first edition of Morgan City’s iconic festival. But a new exhibit does just that.
It’s “The Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival: 90 Years of Celebrations.” The exhibit opened Tuesday at Pharr Chapel United Methodist Church, 517 Federal Ave., Morgan City, and will be open 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday through Sept. 6.
Grieg Chauvin developed the exhibit at the request of Cajun Coast Tourism with funding by the Atchafalaya Natural History area. It includes crowns, gowns, other mementos from past festivals, and pictures — dozens and dozens of pictures that chronicle the event’s history from 1936 to the present.
Visitors can relive past festivals year by year through panels that come alive with photos.
“I think people will be surprised,” said Chauvin, whose interest in local history has contributed to a walking tour app of Morgan City points of interest.
“A lot of this was new to me, and I like the things about people and the behind the history things.”
Among the information on display:
•A 1936 demonstration by members of the Gulf Coast Seafood Producers and Trappers Association became the first festival. It included a parade through Morgan City to Egle’s Hall, where games raised money for the Union Sick Fund. The secretary-treasurer of the association was P.A. LeBlanc, known as the father of the festival.
•LeBlanc put together the first boat parade in 1937. It attracted 143 boats, all blessed by the Rev. Andrew Souby.
•In 1940, marathon swimmer Clifford Aycock swam the five miles from Patterson to Morgan City to appear at the festival. Reporters from Life magazine and Movietone News — the newsreel people — were in town for the festival that year.
•The first festival queen was Dorothy Vining, crowned in 1942. Also that year, the local news reported that the area’s fishing fleet rescued 115 people after German submarines sank three vessels.
•The 1944 festival featured a re-enactment of the D-Day landing. Two hundred troops from Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and 11 Higgins boats were part of that event.
•In 1954, the identity of King Joe Galloway was kept secret until he arrived “in a parade of five lighted shrimp trawlers on the dark waters of Berwick Bay.” The queen was Betty Burgess.
•Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon Johnson, was the special guest at the 1964 festival.
•A trip to the festival was a prize in a 1970 episode of TV’s “The Dating Game.”
•1971 was the first year the festival Mass was celebrated at Lawrence Park. That year was also notable for the politicians who appeared here, including former Gov. Jimmie Davis, future Gov. Edwin Edwards and future Sen. J. Bennett Johnston.
•The 2024 queen, Natalie Sloane, became the first festival queen to ride in New Orleans’ Bacchus Parade.