1947 Map of Martello Castle

About this map

Martello Castle stands as a lonely landmark along the marshy southern shoreline of Lake Borgne in this mid-century survey of the Louisiana coast. The landscape is defined by an intricate network of coastal hydrology, where the Lake Borgne Canal and New Canal cut through the wetlands to facilitate movement across the deltaic plain. This sheet reveals the complex boundary between Orleans Parish and St Bernard Parish, tracing a geography of winding waterways including Bayou Bienvenue and Bashman Bayou. The intricate detail of the marshland, captured from aerial photographs by the Air Corps, shows a world before modern coastal erosion and significant land loss, where the natural paths of Bayou Dupre and Shell Beach Bayou still dominated the transit of the marshes.