BlakePONTCHARTRAIN New Orleans Know-it-all Questions for Blake: askblake@gambitweekly.com Hey Blake,
What’s the status of Fort Pike? I see a few trucks out there during the week, but nothing getting done. Bruce Gebhart
The interior of Fort Pike in 2012. The fort has been closed to the public since Hurricane Katrina. PHOTO BY JOSEPH YARBROUGH
of St. Tammany Parish voiced opposition. The state of Louisiana acquired both forts in 1924, and 10 years later Fort Pike was turned into a state park. In 1972 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Both Fort Pike and Fort Macomb need help, but because Fort Macomb was not open to the public before it received hurricane damage, it does not qualify for FEMA rebuilding funds. The Louisiana Office of State Parks is turning to volunteers and the community to help save that crumbling fort. Historian Joseph Yarbrough formed The Fort Pike Foundation in 2006 to raise funds for projects and educational programs at Fort Pike, but much work remains to be done. Stuart Johnson, assistant secretary of State Parks, says FEMA agreed to pay for removal of debris from Fort Pike — a job that has been completed — but declined a request to fund structural repairs. For that, Johnson says, State Parks has asked the state for about $19 million. The state has not yet acted on that request.
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Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > JUNE 11 > 2013
Dear Bruce, Because Fort Pike was open to the public before Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Isaac, it received assistance from FEMA to recover. But right now it is closed indefinitely. It’s worth a visit when it reopens. The fort was named for explorer and soldier Gen. Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1779-1813), the same man for whom the mountain in Colorado is named. Construction of the fort began in 1819 and was completed in 1826. Designed to withstand attacks from the land or the sea, the fort is constructed of brick and masonry on top of a cypress log foundation. Along with the nearby Fort Macomb, Fort Pike was built to prevent enemy access to New Orleans by way of Lake Pontchartrain. It was constructed on the site of earlier fortifications that had been erected in 1793 by former Gov. Francisco Luis Hector, baron de Carondelet. The U.S. government hired contractors James Bennett and Peter Morte of Washington, D.C., to build the two forts, and their designs are nearly identical. Pointed bastions flank the forts’ land and curved walls face the waters of the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass. Originally Fort Pike was equipped with cannons that could fire 32-pound cannonballs and some that took 24-pound shot, but they were never fired as weapons against an opposing force. Depending on whether the United States was at war or peace, between one and 400 soldiers were garrisoned there. During the Seminole Wars in the 1830s, Fort Pike was a staging area for U.S. troops en route to Florida and was a collection point for hundreds of Seminole prisoners and their black slaves, who were being transported to Oklahoma. (Seminoles gave refuge to free blacks and escaped slaves, and some of those slaves became servants of certain tribal leaders; others became Black Seminoles.) Cannons were removed from some of the casemates to convert them to prison cells. At one point in the conflict, there were only 66 soldiers to guard 253 prisoners. When Louisiana seceded from the Union in 1861, federal troops occupying the fort surrendered to the Louisiana State Militia without incident. When New Or-
leans fell to Union forces in 1862, Confederate soldiers evacuated both Fort Pike and Fort Macomb. The U.S. Army maintained garrisons at the forts until the 1890s. In 1894, the site was considered for a possible home for people with leprosy, but the plan was rejected after residents
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