Legend has it that the name came from the red color of water
that got into the river when the Red River flooded. It sounds
plausible. Levees now keep the Red from flowing into the
Vermilion, but in earlier times the two were connected through a
series of waterways. But that's not the only theory about how
the river got its name. According to a 1976 article by Albert
Gaude, who was then curator of natural science at the Lafayette
Natural History Museum and Planetarium, there are three major
theories about the name. According to the first one, settlers
who came up Bayou Vermilion saw Red River soil deposits on
either side of the bayou as far downstream as the community of
Long Bridge (where the Breaux Bridge highway crosses the
Vermilion Bayou). This soil ranges from a brown to a bright red
color, especially when it is wet. As the color vermilion is
defined as "a vivid red to reddish orange," Gaude says "it would
seem apt for the early discoverers to name this stream for its
brightly colored banks." He notes th