La Balize

Overview

The seamark at the mouth of the river

Sailing ships could not simply sail up the Mississippi. A series of sandbars clogged its mouth, and the current, the shallow passes and the bends made the 95 miles to New Orleans a matter of weeks or even months. In December 1721 officials in Paris ordered a station at the mouth, where ships could anchor, lighten their loads to cross the bar and take on a pilot. The French called it La Balise, the seamark, and by 1721 had raised a 62-foot wooden pyramid there as a beacon.

The station was rebuilt again and again. Geographer Richard Campanella counts at least three sites: the first on a fork of the old East Pass, now Pass a Loutre; a Spanish post called San Carlos on an island where Balise Bayou left what is now Southeast Pass; and a later one nearer the entry of that pass. Hurricanes destroyed or badly damaged it in 1740, 1778, 1831 and 1860, by Wikipedia's record, and the delta kept growing out past it. Under American rule it was a rough, lawless pilots' town. When the pilots' families arrived it became the largest community in Plaquemines Parish, with stores, a town hall, a church and shell roads, by accounts Campanella quotes.

The sources disagree on how it ended. Wikipedia says the pilots had moved their village, and the Balize name, to Southwest Pass by 1853; that the hurricane of September 1860 destroyed it; that the pilots moved upriver to found Pilottown; and that a storm in 1865 swept away the last traces. Campanella says the Balize on Southeast Pass lasted until Eads's jetties opened South Pass in the late 1870s and shipping moved away; the 1893 USGS sheet still shows a cluster of buildings labeled Balize there. Either way it was gone by the 1920s, and today nothing marks the place.

The map point on this page is the one Wikipedia gives. It falls on the Balize of the 1893 sheet, where Balize Bayou leaves Southeast Pass. Our sources don't place the 1720s station on the old East Pass, or Pilotsville on Southwest Pass, closely enough to map them.

Timeline

Three sites and many storms

1. Dec 23, 1721Officials in Paris order a station built at the mouth of the river, in the same dispatch that makes New Orleans the capital, by Campanella's account. By 1721 the French put up a 62-foot wooden pyramid there as a seamark (Wikipedia).
2. 1722–1731A Catholic parish is founded at La Balize in 1722. A 1731 map shows about a hundred people, an 800-foot dock, a brick fort with a chapel, garrison and warehouses, and cabins for enslaved African workers on a separate island.
3. 1740A hurricane washes the post away. Wikipedia says it was rebuilt on a newly formed island called San Carlos; Campanella gives that name to the Spanish post of the 1760s.
4. 1766–1770Spanish governor Antonio de Ulloa lives at the post and holds his wedding there. As Balise Bayou silts up, the Spanish move the station nearer the entry of Southeast Pass. In 1770 it has 20 soldiers and 24 pilots.
5. 1803–1837Under American rule the Balize becomes a private toll station for pilots, notorious for drunkenness and violence. The monopoly is broken in 1806, and in 1837 the state regulates piloting.
6. 1813Barthelemy Lafon draws the Fort of Balise: barracks, officers' lodging, a powder house and cisterns between the Mississippi and Bayou Ronquille.
7. 1853Élisée Reclus describes Pilotsville, on Southwest Pass, which the pilots had moved to and which went by the Balize name: plank shacks on stilts, moored like ships, and about 400 people. He writes that the name belonged to the older village on Southeast Pass.
8. Sep 14–15, 1860A hurricane destroys the pilots' village. Wikipedia says it was then abandoned and the pilots moved upriver to found Pilottown.
9. Late 1870sJames Eads's jetties open South Pass. Campanella writes that ships changed routes and the pilots, workers and fishermen at the Balize moved to Port Eads and later Burrwood.
10. 1893The USGS East Delta sheet labels Balize, with a cluster of buildings where Balize Bayou leaves Southeast Pass. Campanella writes that about two dozen structures remained that year.
11. 1915–1921The storm of 1915 destroys most of what is left. A 1921 Times-Picayune headline says only tombs testify to the place.
12. 2025Campanella writes that "even the tombs are gone."

1720s to 1870s

A pilots' town on stilts

La Balize was a working port. Campanella describes ships anchoring off the post to unload cargo into longboats, and enslaved Senegambian workers rowing the freight upriver to New Orleans. Under Spain the station had a garrison and a pilots' post; under the Americans, two men who had bought the pilotage rights ran it as a private toll station, and the place became known for murder and drunkenness, in the words of historian Joy Jackson, whom Campanella quotes. A state law of 1837 made pilots return straight to the Balize after each ship, and a later one banned taverns and billiard houses there.

Visitors were not kind. Fanny Trollope, in Domestic Manners of the Americans (1833), called it a cluster of huts and the most miserable station she had ever seen. In 1853 Élisée Reclus found the pilots at Pilotsville, on Southwest Pass, where they had taken the Balize name: plank shacks raised on stilts and moored like ships so the storms would not carry them off, with some 400 people living there. The Wikipedia article quotes both at length.

What's left

Marsh and open water

Nothing is left. A 1921 Times-Picayune headline Campanella quotes said only tombs remained, and in 2025 he wrote that even those are gone. Wikipedia's account of a rusted iron tomb marking the site comes from a 1921 New Orleans Item article. The townsite is in the marsh of the lower delta, in the middle of the Pass-a-Loutre Wildlife Management Area. The state's July 2026 map of the WMA outlines two small parcels right at the map point, between North Shore Bay and Redfish Bay, with the WMA boundary line, which leaves them outside the WMA; the map calls the boundary approximate, and we found nothing on who owns them. The state describes the WMA as river channels, bayous and canals among marshes, with hurricane damage and subsidence turning marsh into large ponds.

The USGS sheets in the historic maps below show the last town and its disappearance. The 1893 East Delta sheet labels Balize, with about twenty building symbols on a strip of land where Balize Bayou leaves Southeast Pass, and the Old Spanish Magazine to the south. The 1954 sheet marks only a survey station named Balize and a channel labeled Old Balize, in marsh between North Shore Bay and Redfish Bay. The 1971 sheet names Balize Bayou in a patchwork of marsh and water.

• Nothing standing
• No tombs (2025)
• Old Balize Bayou
• Southeast Pass
• Marsh and open water

Historic maps

La Balize on USGS maps, 1893–1971

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

18931:62,50019541:62,50019711:24,000

Map & directions

Getting there

No road reaches La Balize. Both routes below end where the road ends, at the marina south of Venice, about 17 miles in a straight line from the townsite across the river's passes and marsh. The state wildlife department says the Pass-a-Loutre WMA can be reached only by boat and that the nearest public launches are in Venice. We give no boat route.

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

Photos

La Balize in old views and maps

The Balize in 1828, by Paul Wilhelm, Duke of WürttembergBellin's map of the mouths of the Mississippi, 1744Lafon's plan of the Fort of Balise, 1813French plan for the island of La Balise, dated 1723 on CommonsHenry Lewis, "Pilots Station," published 1857. Lewis puts the station near the mouths of the river, about 100 miles from New Orleans, but doesn't name it

Visitor reports

Been to La Balize?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

Thanks. Your report reached us, and we'll read it before it goes on the page.

River and lake

More river and lake ghost towns

The nearest in Louisiana, then the nearest elsewhere.

Guide

Pilottown

29.18, -89.26

Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana

A town on piers in the marsh of the Mississippi delta, founded by river pilots after the 1860 hurricane. NBC News put its old population at about…

Pilot station, per a 2025 reportRiver and lake

Guide

Blakeley

30.74, -87.92

Baldwin County, Alabama

In the 1820s Blakeley was about as big as Mobile, across the bay. Yellow fever emptied it, and in April 1865 one of the last battles of the Civil War…

Open dailyRiver and lake

All 58 river and lake ghost towns →

Nearby

Other sites near La Balize

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Louisiana index.

• Pilottown9.9 mi NW · Plaquemines
• Burrwood19.5 mi SW · Plaquemines
• Cheniere Caminada57.2 mi W · Jefferson
• Fazendeville77.6 mi NW · St. Bernard
• Good Hope98.2 mi NW · St. Charles
• Frenier104.5 mi NW · St. John the Baptist
• Ruddock108.8 mi NW · St. John the Baptist
• Bayou Goula145.2 mi NW · Iberville

Sources

Sources and credits

1. Wikipedia, "La Balize, Louisiana", retrieved October 2026: the name, the 1721 pyramid, the 1722 parish, the hurricane record (citing David Roth's Louisiana Hurricane History), the move to Southwest Pass by 1853, the 1860 hurricane and Pilottown, the 1865 storm, the iron tomb, the Trollope and Reclus descriptions, coordinates.
2. Richard Campanella, "In Search of the Balize", The Times-Picayune, June 8, 2025: the 1721 order, the three sites, the 1731 map, San Carlos and Ulloa, the 1770 garrison, the toll station, the 1837 law, the 1860 town, the Eads jetties, two dozen structures in 1893, the 1915 storm, the 1921 headline, "even the tombs are gone."
3. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, "Pass-a-Loutre", undated page, read October 2026: owner and size, habitat and marsh loss, boat-only access, launches at Venice, camping.
4. LDWF, Pass-a-Loutre WMA map, July 2026: the approximate boundary, the two parcels outlined outside it at the townsite, mud-motor routes and the limited access area rules.
5. LDWF, Louisiana 2026–2027 Hunting & WMA Regulations, updated October 16, 2026: the WMA Access Permit and self-clearing permit rules, and the Pass-a-Loutre boat rules.
6. Historic views and maps on Wikimedia Commons, credited below: Paul Wilhelm (1828), Lafon (1813, Library of Congress), Bellin (1744), a French plan of the 1720s and Henry Lewis (1857).
7. Henry Lewis, Das illustrirte Mississippithal (Düsseldorf, 1857), Internet Archive scan: his text beside the "Pilots Station" plate, placing it near the mouths of the river about 100 miles from New Orleans.
8. USGS East Delta sheets, 1893 and 1954, and Garden Island Pass sheet, 1971 (in the historic maps below): the Balize buildings, the survey station and Old Balize Bayou.
9. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026; OpenStreetMap also for the marina at the road's end. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

• The Balize in 1828, by Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg: Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Bellin's map of the mouths of the Mississippi, 1744: Map by Jacques Nicolas Bellin, engraved by Guillaume Dheulland, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Lafon's plan of the Fort of Balise, 1813: Barthelemy Lafon (d. 1820), Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• French plan for the island of La Balise, dated 1723 on Commons: Not credited, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Henry Lewis, "Pilots Station," published 1857. Lewis puts the station near the mouths of the river, about 100 miles from New Orleans, but doesn't name it: Lewis, Henry, 1819-1904. cn, Wikimedia Commons, No known copyright restrictions
• Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): East Delta 1893, 1:62,500; East Delta 1954, 1:62,500; Garden Island Pass 1971, 1:24,000.