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Lake Pontchartrain (Images of America) |
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Mark Twain |
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 “Thence, we drove a few miles across
a swamp, along a raised shell road, with a canal on one hand and a dense wood on the other; and here and there, in the distance,
a ragged and angular-limbed and moss-bearded cypress, top standing out, clear cut against the sky, and as quaint of form as
the apple-trees in Japanese pictures--such was our course and the surroundings of it. There was an occasional alligator swimming
comfortably along in the canal, and an occasional picturesque...person on the bank, flinging his statue-rigid reflection upon
the still water and watching for a bite”. Mark Twain, 1874, Life on the Mississippi.  Also from
Life on the Mississippi, “And by-and-bye we reached the West End, a collection of hotels of the usual light summer-resort
pattern, with broad verandas all around, and the waves of the wide and blue Lake Pontchartrain lapping the thresholds. We
had dinner on a ground-veranda over the water--the chief dish the renowned fish called the pompano, delicious as the less
criminal forms of sin.”  “There
are good clubs in the city now--several of them but recently organized--and inviting modern-style pleasure resorts at West
End and Spanish Fort. Thousands of people come by rail and carriage to West End and to Spanish Fort every evening, and dine,
listen to the bands, take strolls in the open air under the electric lights, go sailing on the lake, and entertain themselves
in various and sundry other ways.” Mark Twain again, describing the pleasures to be found on Lake Ponchartrain in Life
on the Mississippi.
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Excerpts from New Orleans City Park (Images of America)
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