Fort Pike
fort at outskirts of New Orleans, Louisiana
Fort Pike State Historic Site is a decommissioned 19th-century United States fort, named after Brigadier General Zebulon Pike. It was built following the War of 1812 to guard the Rigolets pass in Louisiana, a strait from the Gulf of Mexico, via Lake Borgne, to Lake Pontchartrain bordering New Orleans. It was located near the community of Petite Coquille, now within the city limits of New Orleans.
The fort's ruins have long been a tourist attraction with periods of abandonment. The fort was damaged by the Hurricane Katrina storm surge in 2005, and closed for a period. It also had to be closed following Hurricanes Gustav and Isaac in 2008 and 2012, respectively.
History
A fort had been constructed in 1793 at Petit Coquilles, and was the intended destination of Jones's gunboat squadron prior to the Battle of Lake Borgne. General Jackson's engineer, Major Latour, lamented upon the state of the fort in 1814. Postwar, it was decided to improve the coastal defences with the creation of Fort Pike commencing in 1819 to replace the earlier fort. It was the first of three forts to be constructed in Louisiana under the postwar "Third System", along with Fort Jackson, Louisiana, and Fort Livingston, Louisiana.
The public source identifies “Fort Pike” as fort at outskirts of New Orleans, Louisiana. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fort, Pike and fort.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Fort Pike”, the useful work is to connect “fort at outskirts of New Orleans, Louisiana” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3077981. The Library of Congress control number is sh92000674. Authority coordinates are 30.166, -89.737. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1812, 2005, 2008 and 2012.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Fort Pike” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.