1948: Historic Forts

1948: Historic Forts
Fort Pike, circa 1948. The Historic New Orleans Collection, Gift of H. Waller Fowler, Jr.

Anyone who has driven from New Orleans to the Mississippi Gulf Coast along Chef Menteur Highway is familiar with the two decaying old forts overlooking the marshes just yards from the highway. Both, constructed in the early 19th century, were part of a network of citadels built to protect New Orleans from foreign invasion. Fort Macomb stood watch over Chef Menteur Pass and Fort Pike, seen here in this circa 1948 photograph, guarded the Rigolets. Both waterways led from the open Gulf of Mexico to the city’s backdoor.

After the War of 1812 when the British invaded Washington, D.C., and attempted New Orleans, President James Monroe ordered the construction of forts all along the Atlantic and Gulf Coast to protect vital seaports and rivers. Fort Pike, named for soldier and explorer Zebulon Pike, and Fort Macomb, originally Fort Wood but later renamed in honor of Commanding General of the Army Alexander Macomb, were built between 1819 and 1826. Others included forts Jackson and St. Philip on the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, and Fort Livingston protecting Barataria Bay. Later in the 1850s, the Federal government continued the New Orleans defense project with Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island and Fort Proctor in St. Bernard Parish.

Perhaps the fort best known to New Orleanians is Fort Pike, for many years a popular site for military history savants and stopover for travelers on their way to and from the Gulf Coast.

Although a hostile shot was never fired from Fort Pike, it was an active military post for about a half century. According to a history of the fort by the Louisiana Office of State Parks, Fort Pike played minor roles in the Florida Seminole Wars in the 1830s, the Mexican War of the 1840s, and the Civil War. During the Seminole Wars, it was a layover for U.S. Army troops heading to Florida. It also housed Seminole prisoners being transported to Oklahoma. In the Mexican War, it was a staging ground for troops on their way to Mexico and Texas. In 1861 Confederate troops occupied and then abandoned the fort after New Orleans fell to Union forces in 1862. It became a launching site for attacks against nearby Confederates and a training site for African American artillery soldiers who later fought at the Battle of Port Hudson upriver from Baton Rouge.

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As to Fort Macomb, it too saw little action. Like Fort Pike, Confederate forces occupied the site until the fall of New Orleans. In 1867 the fort’s barracks burned and the post was abandoned. By the late 1800s, the Army deemed both forts obsolete. It decommissioned Fort Macomb in 1871 and closed Fort Pike in the 1890s. Both are now owned by the State of Louisiana and both are on the National Register for Historic Places.

Fort Pike has been closed to the public since 2015 due to dangerous structural problems. According to a Louisiana State Parks official, the walls are cracking and the fort is slowly sinking. Citing budgetary concerns, the state has no immediate plans to restore the fort.

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