La Balize, Louisiana, 1828, by Friedrich Paul Wilhelm, the Fifth Duke of Wurttemberg, during his first expedition to the United States between 1822 and 1824.
La Balize, Louisiana, was a French fort and settlement near the mouth of the Mississippi River in what later became Plaquemines Parish. The village’s name meant “seamark.”
When the explorer Robert de La Salle claimed the land for the French crown in 1682, he identified this site near the mouth of the Mississippi River as important. It was just above two significant river forks, allowing for controlled passage.
La Balize was founded in 1699 when the French erected a simple wooden fort and, a little later, a lighthouse-type tower in an attempt to control passage on the Mississippi River. The town was historically and economically significant for overseeing the movement of ships on the river. Chiefly inhabited by fishermen, river pilots, and their families, the pilots were critical in helping ships navigate to and from the port of New Orleans through the shifting passages, currents, and sandbars of the Mississippi River Delta. The village was vulnerable to seasonal hurricanes and was rebuilt several times.
La Balise, Louisiana Fort.
A map drawn about 1720 showed the mouth of the Mississippi with its different forks, the island, and the fort of La Balize. By 1721, the French had constructed a 62-foot-high wooden pyramid at the settlement. It sat relatively high above the mud and marshes of the delta wetlands.
By 1722, the center of the French colony was in New Orleans. At that time, the Roman Catholic Church quickly established seven pioneer parishes in the Louisiana colony, including La Balize. However, no church was built, and a visiting priest likely served the parishioners occasionally. The King commissioned Nicolas Godefroy Barbin to serve as the chief administrator. The French also founded four pioneer parishes in early villages of what is now Mississippi and Alabama.
French engineers dragged an iron harrow through sandbanks to make it easier for ships to pass the bar in 1726.
In 1740, a hurricane destroyed La Balize. A new island, San Carlos, arose, and the village was rebuilt on it. Eventually, San Carlos Island was severely damaged several times and finally destroyed.
In 1750, the central passage was the Northeast Pass, followed by the Southeast Pass, Southwest Pass, and South Pass. The central ship passage was again in the Southwest Pass.
By 1752, the La Balize Catholic parish was dissolved. The following year, the village was rebuilt about five miles northwest, at Southwest Pass on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
Mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana by the United States. War Department, 1813.
The Americans took control of the territory in 1803 through the Louisiana Purchase. In the 19th century, with the advent of steam tugboats, pilots had greater power to maneuver oceangoing ships on the river.
On July 25-28, 1819, several ships anchored near La Balize suffered through a 24-hour gale, but only three were grounded.
“The building gives its name to one of the most wretched villages in the country… The regular population consists of 90 men and 11 women. The tavern, which is the principal building, and a few other houses are built on the United States land… There is nowhere a more convenient spot from which smuggling may be carried on and connived.”
— Architect Benjamin LaTrobe, who designed the U.S. Capitol, visited La Balize in 1819.
La Balize, Louisiana, by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1819.
In 1831, La Balize suffered significant damage.
On April 3-4, 1846, the most damaging storm since that of 1831 occurred, cutting a new channel between Cat Island and its lighthouse.
By 1853, La Balize had been relocated to the Southwest Pass, built on the western bank about five miles northwest of its first location.
Two years later, on September 15-16, 1855, the lighthouse keeper’s house was destroyed, and the lighthouse at Cat Island was imperiled. Almost everything else was swept away in the storm surge.
In 1858, a steamboat left New Orleans every Tuesday and Friday for La Balize.
On August 11, 1860, in the first hurricane of the season, trees were uprooted, and up to a 10-foot storm surge flooded the region of La Balize. Then, about a month later, another hurricane on September 14-15, 1860, took the village down again, and La Balize was abandoned. A new settlement for the pilots was constructed about five miles upriver on the east bank of the Mississippi River, just above the Head of the Passes. It was often called Pilottown or Pilotsville.
At its population peak in the 19th century, it had about 800 residents. A school for children operated into the 20th century. Today, pilots usually stay there only temporarily for work shifts.
The central ship passage changed four times before 1888.
Although La Balize had been abandoned since 1860, a hurricane on September 13, 1865, destroyed the village’s last traces.
By the early 20th century, only a rusted iron tomb marked the site. Today, it is completely gone.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated November 2025