The tale of what happened on Sunday, Aug. 10, 1856, to Last Island, the little barrier off the Terrebonne Parish coast, has been told and retold many times. It is succinctly summarized in an introduction to Lafcadio Hearn’s novel, Chita, a romanticized story about those events that was first published in 1888.
“In 1856 the Gulf of Mexico reared up and devoured (Last Island) pretty much whole,…