Towering oak trees, some more than 200 years old, shade the grounds of the former Mount Carmel Academy campus along Bayou Teche, where a small historical marker draws attention to a piece of the property’s past: a tunnel buried beneath the school.
For decades, students who attended Mount Carmel Academy in New Iberia passed down stories about a tunnel beneath the campus.
Some said it was used in various punishments. Others believed it stretched all the way to the bayou. The most persistent folklore tied it to pirates, hidden gold and secret escapes…