Back in the late 19th century when Canal Street was the center of commercial life in New Orleans merchants competed to get their messages out to the public. None did it better than entrepreneur, businessman and promoter Joseph Belknap who built this public fountain, advertising marquee and water-driven entertainment center on the neutral ground at the corner of Camp and Canal streets. As seen in this 1875 stereopticon slide by New Orleans photographer S.T. Blessing, Belknap’s fountain was the epitome of Gilded Age ingenuity, showmanship and a visual banquet that stood on Canal Street for over two decades. The question remains, however, whatever happened to it?
The story begins in early 1870 when the City Council gave Belknap permission to build his fountain with the understanding it would revert to the city after three years. On Sept. 14, 1870, the Daily Picayune, the forerunner of today’s Times-Picayune, described Belknap’s plan:
“The fountain which the Council has authorized Mr. Belknap to erect on the neutral ground on Canal Street, as the intersection of Camp and Chartres, is to be much larger and of a more ornamental and attractive design than is generally supposed. It is to consist of three basins of different dimensions, rising one above the other, in which are to be placed certain mechanical movements concealed from view, (under water) which, when acted upon by the water from the city works, will propel a number of fancy boats containing figures in action, also swans, etc., around the basins on the surface of the water. From the basins there will be fountain jets perpetually at play, and the centre jet will uphold a golden ball.”
The city also required Belknap to make periodic changes to the fountain’s mechanical devices “to sustain popular interest.” The Daily Picayune article went on to say the “fountain itself will be place in the centre of a beautiful octagonal pagoda, ten feet in diameter, and twenty-two feet high, constructed entirely of iron and glass, elegantly painted and decorated inside and out. The dome is to be surrounded by a gilded yacht, which will act as a weather vane, and is intended as a compliment to the Crescent City Yacht Club. The fountain is to be open at all times to public view, and after dark will be illuminated by numerous gas jets…An excellent feature of the fountain will be the two drinking fountains attached for the free use of the public.”
On April 2, 1871, Belknap was ready to stage a formal opening for the fountain when the privately owned Crescent City Water Works slapped him and the city with an injunction to prevent the city from providing water to the fountain. The company claimed the flow of water to the fountain would reduce the amount of water needed to flush the city’s gutters, especially as the “sickly season” approached. A local court dismissed the injunction and Belknap was in business selling advertising to local merchants. Their ads were placed in the oval windows that surrounded the fountain.
A year later, Belknap made a few changes to the fountain’s interior works. According to The Daily Picayune, “In lieu of the upper basin there are now three or four water spouts issuing from the trunks of miniature elephants, surrounding a central figure of handsome design. Steamers, however, continue to ply the main basin as heretofore.”
Apparently, Belknap took poor care of his brainchild. In September 1873, when his three years were up, the city took possession of the “unsightly affair” and turned it over to another investor who promised to restore it to “a condition that will give our city just cause to feel proud of it.”
By the 1890s, however, the fountain was back in the city’s hands. The City Council eventually gave it to the New Orleans Traction Company, operators of several streetcar lines on Canal Street. As streetcar operations expanded, the company needed space, and so in 1895 it donated the structure to City Park, which placed the then-called “iron pavilion” next to the gate and archway located at the City Park Avenue entrance. Not knowing quite what to do with it, park commissioners decided in April 1903 to divert money for building a pond to convert the domed pagoda into a “bird cage.” An April 1916 photograph shows the hollowed-out structure still standing at that same location. After that, no one seems to know what happened to the “iron pavilion,” not even current park officials. Some speculate it was moved to a nearby park island or destroyed by a hurricane. Perhaps it was scrapped for iron during World War I.
The mystery remains.
