Fort Pike, like Forts Morgan and Pickens, was designed by Simon Bernard, the French engineer hired to help design a series of coastal fortifications to defend the United States. (Location of Fort Pike)
Built from 1819 to 1826, Fort Pike is located at the Rigolets, a narrow passage between the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ponchatrain, near New Orleans, Louisiana. This area is essentially a swamp, and provided many challenges for the builders. One of the most prominent was creating a strong foundation. This was accomplished by sinking several layers of "rafts" of cypress logs into the swamp, and topping this with a thick layer of sea shells. Since the logs will not rot unless exposed to cycles of wetting and drying, this has provided a strong foundation since.
This plan is of Fort Wood (later Fort Macomb), which is essentially identical in design to Fort Pike.
Fort Pike was designed with a curved face toward the Rigolets, mounting a casemate and a barbette tier of guns.
One of the unique features of Fort Pike is the casemate design. Almost all of Simon Bernard's designs used a casement with a narrow tunnel leading to the open area with the gun mounts. However, this was changed before construction on all the fortifications except Fort Pike and Fort Macomb (Wood) to the more common American design with casemates which were fully open at the back.Continue
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