Spanish Fort, also known as Old Spanish Fort, Fort St. Jean, and Fort St. John ( es, Fuerte de San Juan del Bayou), is a historic place in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

and later an

amusement park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

Prehistory

Archaeological investigations have discovered that the fort location was a site of the

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

Marksville culture The Marksville culture was an archaeological culture in the lower Lower Mississippi valley, Yazoo valley, and Tensas valley areas of present-day Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and extended eastward along the Gulf Coast to the Mobile Bay a ...

dating back to circa 300 CE, with continued occupation afterwards. A large shell midden was used as the base under the early Colonial fort

The fort

The Colonial era fort protected the

Lake Pontchartrain Lake Pontchartrain ( ) is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of with an average depth of . Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about from wes ...

entrance of

Bayou St. John Bayou St. John () is a bayou within the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. The Bayou as a natural feature drained the swampy land of a good portion of what was to become New Orleans, into Lake Pontchartrain. In its natural state, it extended much ...

. The first small fort here was erected by the French in 1701, before the founding of the city of New Orleans, to protect the important trade route along Bayou St. John. After

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...

passed to Spanish control, a larger brick fort was constructed at the site of the neglected old French fortification; this was known as San Juan del Bayou. Louisiana passed back to France and then to the hands of the United States. The fort was decommissioned in 1823.

From fort to amusement park

The land was bought by private developers, and became a popular amusement park, known as "Spanish Fort" or "Old Spanish Fort". It featured restaurants, a

casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live enterta ...

, a resort hotel, dancing pavilions, an

alligator An alligator is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus ''Alligator'' of the family Alligatoridae. The two Extant taxon, extant species are the American alligator (''A. mississippiensis'') and the Chinese alligator (''A. sinensis'' ...

pond, and in its later decades amusement rides such as the "Scenic railway", a

roller coaster A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides ar ...

. A steam railway, and later an electric

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport ...

system, connected the lakeside resort with the center of the city. It was especially popular during the summer for the cooling breezes of the Lake. It was billed as the "

Coney Island Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to th ...

of the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

". From about 1880 to 1908 the small iron submarine now in the collection of the

Louisiana State Museum The Louisiana State Museum (LSM), founded in New Orleans in 1906, is a statewide system of National Historic Landmarks and modern structures across Louisiana, housing thousands of artifacts and works of art reflecting Louisiana's legacy of historic ...

was on display here, identified as the Confederate war submarine "Pioneer". (Recent investigations have called the traditional identification into question, making the curious early submarine even more of a mystery; ''see:''

Bayou St. John submarine The Bayou St. John Confederate Submarine is an early military submarine built for use by the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Description The submarine is constructed of riveted iron, long, wide and deep, with a h ...

.) "Over the Rhine", a German restaurant and

beer garden A beer garden (German: ''Biergarten'') is an outdoor area in which beer and food are served, typically at shared tables shaded by trees. Beer gardens originated in Bavaria, of which Munich is the capital city, in the 19th century, and remain co ...

, was a popular attraction, as were dances by Paoletti's Orchestra. Tranchina's Restaurant and Brown's Ice Cream Parlor often featured live bands. The park had two

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dinin ...

s, "Tokyo Gardens" and "The Frolics". In the park's later decades, a number of early

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

bands played here. Armand J. Piron's New Orleans Orchestra was a regular;

Papa Celestin Oscar Phillip Celestin (January 1, 1884 – December 15, 1954) better known by stage name Papa Celestin was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader. Life and career Celestin was born in Napoleonville, Louisiana, to a Creole family, son of a ...

's band filled in while Piron was in New York. Pianist Steve Lewis performed not only with Piron's band, but also did solos and duets with singer New Orleans Willie Jackson.

Johnny Bayersdorffer Johnny Bayersdorffer (4 September 1899 – 14 November 1969) was a New Orleans jazz cornetist and bandleader. Bayersdorffer was a popular bandleader at the Spanish Fort resort on Bayou St. John by Lake Pontchartrain. He is best remembered t ...

's Jazzola Novelty Orchestra and Johnny Miller's New Orleans Frolicers were also regulars.

End of the amusement park

Starting in the late 1920s, a project reclaimed land from Lake Pontchartrain, extending the

shoreline A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past ...

out away from the old fort. The city's main amusement park became

Pontchartrain Beach Pontchartrain Beach was an amusement park located in New Orleans, Louisiana, on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain. It was founded by Harry J. Batt Sr. (grandfather of American actor Bryan Batt) and later managed and owned by his sons, Harry J ...

. In 1938, the location was converted into a public park. The name ″Spanish Fort″ was used because the only thing known about its history at the time was that it had been built by the Spanish. The site of Spanish Fort, mostly a brick ruin, can still be seen along the upper side of the Bayou just back from Allen Toussaint Boulevard, adjacent to what is now the "Floral Park" section of the Lake Vista neighborhood.

References

External links

Photos of Spanish Fort today
{{National Register of Historic Places Amusement parks in New Orleans Defunct amusement parks in the United States History of New Orleans Colonial forts in Louisiana Forts in Louisiana French forts in the United States Spanish forts in the United States Spanish-American culture in Louisiana Forts on the National Register of Historic Places in Louisiana National Register of Historic Places in New Orleans