ABSTRACT
Five miles from the bustling quay of the Mississippi River lay historic New Orleans's "other" waterfront: the grassy shore of the semi-brackish inland bay known by the quasi-misnomer of Lake Pontchartrain. Low, marshy, and remote, the lakeshore remained a wilderness in the early decades and a shantytown of fishing camps and jerry-built shacks into the early 20th century. The only exceptions were West End, Spanish Fort, and Milneburg, which served as lakefront resorts for city dwellers and mini-ports for the waterways and railroads that connected them with downtown. The municipal drainage project of the early 1900s transformed those marshes into valuable real estate. Despite its success in creating new residential land, the Lakefront Project was primarily designed to resist hurricane-induced surges of lake and gulf water. It served this function well during Hurricane Katrina, remaining mostly dry while preventing 10-foot-high lake waters from spilling into eight-foot-low residential neighborhoods.
