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( ) is a small city in and the parish seat of Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, United States, along the banks of Bayou Lafourche in the northwestern part of the parish. The population was 14,431 at the 2000 census. Thibodaux is a principal city of the Houma–Bayou Cane–Thibodaux Metropolitan Statistical Area.
ZIP codes for Thibodaux are 70301, 70302, and 70310. Thibodaux's area code is 985. Thibodaux is nicknamed "Queen City of Lafourche."
The community was settled in the 18th century. It was incorporated as a town in 1830 under the name
, in honor of local plantation owner Henry Schuyler Thibodaux, who in 1824 served as acting governor of Louisiana. The name was changed to
A sugar cane workers' strike culminated in the "Thibodaux Massacre" of Nov. 1-4,1887, the second most bloody labor dispute in U.S. history. The strike for higher wages of 10,000 workers (1,000 of whom were white) was organized by the Knights of Labor during rolling period. This was critical to the sugar cane harvest. Planters were alarmed both by outside organizations and the thought of losing their total crops. Plantations in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes were involved. The governor called in the State militia at the planters' request. Efforts to break the strike resulted in the deaths of a total of 30-35 African American workers, chiefly at the hands of white paramilitary members. In 2008, Eric Braeden (Victor Newman, The Young & The Restless) produced and starred in the lead role of "The Man Who Came Back", a movie based on the Thibodaux Massacre.
In 1896, the first "rural free delivery" of mail in Louisiana began in Thibodaux. It was the second in the United States.