Pictured is the
Tug 'Frank' owned by Poitevent-Favre Lumber Company
at West End in New Orleans, ca. 1926.
Im the 1850s West
End & Lakeport development begins. The earliest
structures were wooden huts raised on stilts. The canal
provided a harbor for fishing boats. The people who
lived along the canal and out on the lake were squatters
who made their living from fishing, crabbing, hunting
and trapping, as well as from the rental of boats, the
sale of tackle and bait, and the entertainment of
vacationers. Development along this area originally
occurred in the mid-19th century with a commercial wharf
and resort called Lakeport. Steamboats docked at the
entrance to the New Basin Canal (now Pontchartrain
Blvd.) and at the terminus of the Jefferson and Lake
Pontchartrain Railroad where Bucktown is today. The
railroad ran along what is now the Orleans-Jefferson
Parish boundary at the 17th Street Canal. Dug as a
drainage canal along the upper boundary of the Town of
Carrollton, it was originally called the Upperline
Canal. The Jefferson and Lake Pontchartrain Railroad,
1853-1864, was an extension of the New Orleans and
Carrollton Railroad (today the St. Charles Avenue
streetcar line). At the lake end of the railway were a
hotel, restaurants, a bowling alley, dance hall, picnic
ground, pleasuregarden, and bathing facilities. The
place later became a famous amusement park known as West
End (of Orleans Parish)
Source: Betsy Swanson -
at http://www.deanies.com
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