Fort Pike, Military fortification in Orleans Parish, United States.
Fort Pike is a decommissioned 19th-century fort with low brick walls enclosing a grassy courtyard. On one side, a long wall has five arched openings; on the other, a roofless two-story red-brick block shows rectangular embrasures and a tall vertical doorway. Grass grows along the broken top edges and on the interior floor.
Construction of Fort Pike began in 1819 as part of the Third System of coastal fortifications designed to strengthen defenses following the War of 1812. The fort played a key role in early American coastal defense strategy against maritime threats.
During the Seminole Wars of the 1820s, the US Army held captured Seminole prisoners at Fort Pike before transporting them to the Seminole Reservation in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. In 1864 the fort became a training site for United States Colored Troops, mostly formerly enslaved men. The 1974 film Nightmare Honeymoon used the fort in its final sequence.
The fort is located north of New Orleans off U.S. Route 90 and is easily accessible by car. Visitors should wear comfortable shoes as exploring the casemates, ramparts, and surrounding grounds requires walking across uneven terrain.
No cannon was ever fired in battle at Fort Pike. The fort instead served as a prison for Seminole captives during the 1820s and, from 1864, as a training site for United States Colored Troops, many of them former slaves. It was abandoned by the Army in 1890.
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