Spanish Fort was another Lake Pontchartrain pleasure resort, at the end of Bayou St. John. At the rear of this print is the Spanish Fort pavilion, the site of band concerts and lectures. First built in the 1820s, Spanish fort came into its own in the 1870s and early 1880s, when the reconstruction of the old Pontchartrain Hotel and the addition of the pavilion, a casino, a theater, restaurants, gardens, bathing piers--and a railroad line connected to downtown New Orleans--drew thousands of people to the resort.

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