Qualla: Fort Livingston

Fort Livingston: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jason Church, Public domain. Before the U.S. government built a fort on Grand Terre Island, it first had to evict the pirates. Captain Jean Lafitte had been running his smuggling and privateering operation from this low-lying barrier island at the mouth of Barataria Pass since the early 1800s, using it as a staging ground for contraband flowing into New Orleans. The Navy forced Lafitte out in 1814, and within two decades the government began constructing a coastal defense fort on the same ground. That fort -- named for Edward Livingston, who served as both a U.S. Senator from Louisiana and Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson -- was never finished. Construction halted when the Civil War began, and no one ever came back to complete the job. Today Fort Livingston stands in ruins on an island reachable only by boat, slowly losing ground to the Gulf that surrounds it.

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Image: Jason Church | Public domain

Fort Livingston: From Pirate Haven to Sugar Fields to Fortress

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edibobb, CC BY 3.0. Grand Terre Island passed through remarkably different hands in a short span of years. After Lafitte's expulsion, the island was purchased by Jean Baptiste Moussier, who ran it as a sugar plantation from 1821 until his death in 1831. The U.S. government then acquired a tract on t...

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Image: Edibobb | CC BY 3.0

Fort Livingston: A Fort That Never Fired a Shot

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carol Chin, Public domain. The Confederacy garrisoned Fort Livingston early in the Civil War, stationing four companies totaling 300 men under General Lovell. They armed it with 15 guns: a 32-pounder, an 8-inch columbiad, seven 24-pounders, four 12-pounders, and two howitzers. The fort's strategic purpose ...

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Image: Carol Chin | Public domain

Fort Livingston: Shrimp, Science, and Storms

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. The island's postmilitary history is as layered as its past. In 1867, a commercial shrimp cannery opened adjacent to the fort ruins -- a facility that produced the first canning of shrimp in America. The U.S. government transferred control of both the fort and the island to the S...

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Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

Fort Livingston: The Gulf Closes In

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jason Church, Public domain. Fort Livingston is Louisiana's only fort on the Gulf of Mexico, and the Gulf is slowly reclaiming it. Tropical storm systems in 2002 dramatically accelerated erosion along West Grand Terre Island, forcing the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources to construct a rock dike to p...

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Image: Jason Church | Public domain