Third New Canal Lighthouse completed in 1890 Photograph courtesy State Library of Louisiana

Before the canal was completed, Congress had authorized funds for the establishment of a light at the entrance to New Canal. The lighthouse was an octagonal, wooden tower resting on pilings driven into the lake bottom and was built by Francis D. Gott under a contract for $4,500 that was signed on 31 July 1838. This first New Canal Lighthouse was completed by February of 1839, but after just four years, the tower’s lower timbers had rotted, causing it to lean. The Lighthouse Board strengthened the tower’s underpinnings in 1853, preserving the lighthouse until a new one could be completed. The second New Canal Lighthouse, a square, one-story structure supported by iron pilings, was completed in 1855. The tower’s four-sided roof sloped upwards to the lantern room, which held a fifth-order Fresnel lens.

During the Civil War, the confederates kept the light active until New Orleans fell to Union forces in April of 1862. The light was relit by the end of the following September with the light's pre-war keeper, William A. Waldo, being reappointed.

Around 1880, a substantial yacht club was built northwest of the tower, partially obscuring the light. The Lighthouse Board talked of discontinuing the light, but decided rather to erect a new two-story lighthouse atop the old screwpiles. The focal plane was thus raised sixteen feet. The old lighthouse was sold for scrap, and the third incarnation of the New Canal Lighthouse was activated on June 2, 1890.

The New Canal Station just might hold the record for having the most female keepers. At least five women served at the station, most of whom took over when their keeper husbands died. Elizabeth Beattie became keeper in 1846 after her husband Thomas, who was the first keeper of the New Canal Lighthouse, passed away. Keeper Caroline Riddle received commendations for keeping a light lit during a powerful hurricane in September of 1915. During the storm, the barometric pressure fell to a U.S. record low of 28.11 inches, while Lake Pontchartrain rose above its levees, flooding parts of New Orleans. Keeper Maggie Norvell is remembered for her valiant rescues. On one occasion, she used the station’s rowboat to save a Navy pilot, who had crashed his biplane into the lake. In 1926, she helped evacuate passengers from an excursion boat that caught fire near the lighthouse.

New Canal Lighthouse damaged by Hurricane Katrina Photograph courtesy Anne Rheams

The New Canal Lighthouse originally stood approximately 1,000 feet offshore, but landfill projects in the early 1900s slowly brought the shore to the lighthouse, creating what is now Lakefront Park. The lighthouse served as a Coast Guard Station with a search and rescue detachment from the early 1960s until a brand new facility was completed in Bucktown in 2001.

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city of New Orleans. The storm, which is the costliest natural disaster in the history of the country, destroyed several lighthouses and inflicted significant damage to others. The New Canal Lighthouse, sitting as it does on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, was inundated by the storm surge accompanying the hurricane. This photograph, submitted by Dave Lockhart and the one at right provided by Anne Rheams show the extent of the damage to the lighthouse. Though heavily damaged, the lighthouse remained upright and mostly intact until a cold front the following November caused the unstable lighthouse to keel over and lose its lantern room.

The Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation (LPBF) had been seeking ownership of the New Canal Lighthouse since the Coast Guard left the lighthouse for their new station in Buckton. Just before Katrina, LPBF was participating in the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Program with a goal to turn the lighthouse into an education center for the public. Undaunted by the damage inflicted by Katrina, LPBF signed a lease with the Coast Guard in September 2006 to restore the lighthouse. Site cleanup and stabilization, which together will cost around $75,000, had to be completed before any restoration could begin.

During the fall of 2007, the remains of the New Canal Lighthouse were dismantled, and any historic materials that were salvageable were retained. LPBF has $200,000 escrowed and needs an additional $600,000 to reconstruct the lighthouse. Once rebuilt, the lighthouse will be known as the New Canal Lighthouse Education Center and will feature interactive displays depicting the history of the lighthouse and the New Basin Canal, the ecology of Lake Pontchartrain, and the impacts of Katrina to the area.

References

1. Lighthouses, Lightships, and the Gulf of Mexico, David Cipra, 1997.
2. Inventory of Historic Light Stations, National Park Service.