New Canal Lighthouse

Title

New Canal Lighthouse

Artist

Judy Jones

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

History of the New Canal Lighthouse
Adapted from Lighthouses, Lightships, and the Gulf of Mexico, By David L. Cipra

The first New Canal Lighthouse was built in 1839 when the U.S. Congress appropriated money for a lighthouse at the entrance of the New Basin Canal at Lake Pontchartrain. The New Basin Canal extended along what is now West End Boulevard to an area just north of the Superdome. The lighthouse was basically a cypress tower with a lantern on top set on pilings about 1,000 feet offshore.

By 1843 many of the lower timbers on the lighthouse had begun to rot requiring a new lighthouse to be built. In 1855 a one-story, square wood dwelling was constructed on screwpiles with a lantern on top of the roof. In 1880 the Southern Yacht Club was relocated to New Orleans from Biloxi and the building blocked the light. The Lighthouse Board sold the old lighthouse for scrap and mounted a new, two-story building 16 feet higher on top of the original iron piles in 1890. By the early 1900s several land building projects occurred along the lakefront and included a peninsula on which the lighthouse was moved. Since that time some additions and renovations brought the lighthouse up to modern standards for housing of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). The USCG occupied the lighthouse from the 1960�s until 2001.

Before the USCG, lightkeepers were used to operate the light. Notable among these keepers were several women. Elizabeth Beattie was appointed in 1847 after her husband, the station�s first keeper, died. In 1850, Jane O�Driscol took over when her husband died. Mary Campbell held the post from 1870 until 1895 when Caroline Riddle took over. Maggie Norvell relieved Riddle in 1924. Caroline Riddle was commended for heroism for keeping the light lit during a hurricane. Maggie Norvell saved 200 people by rowing them ashore during a fire on an excursion boat.

Hurricane Katrina was not the only hurricane to severely damage the lighthouse. In September of 1915 a hurricane with winds up to 130 miles per hour heavily damaged the station. Hurricane damage in 1926 resulted in the light being raised onto concrete piers.

Since 2002, the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation has actively sought ownership of the lighthouse once the USCG moved into their new station in Bucktown. Before Hurricane Katrina, LPBF was participating in the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Program to turn the lighthouse into an education center for the public featuring exhibits about the history of the light and the ecology of the Pontchartrain Basin.

Finally, a replica of the New Canal Lighthouse, destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, has been built. It incorporates original wood from the 1890 lighthouse that stood on the site and now operates as Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation's New Canal Lighthouse Museum and Education Center.

This painting is of the Lighthouse BEFORE Katrina struck. The restored one is now elevated one story higher.

Uploaded

February 9th, 2017

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