West Beach Parkway Subdivision

West Beach Parkway Subdivision, circa 1925. With its incorporation in 1925, The West Beach Parkway Subdivision became one of the first developments in the United States self-identified as a subdivision.

The site, designed as an oval, was never used as a racetrack as suggested by local tradition. Bounded by Lakeshore Drive on the south, Monroe Street on the north, Carondelet Street on the east and Galvez Street on the west, the two main tracts were purchased in 1906 by the Great Southern Lumber Company from Louisiana Fontini and George Bierhorst. The Bierhorst Tract, Mon Plaisir, was a diary farm on which the owner built his home in the late 19th century, located at 306 East Street.

The St Tammany Development Corporation acquired the land from Great Southern. Its conversion from 'low and marshy' land to a site 'more beautiful than words can describe' introduced the new subdivision in a 1926 Times-Picayune article written by State Representative Thomas Berry:

"A seawall protects it from the lake. The front has been filled with 30,000 cubic yards of material by hydraulic dredges, a circular driveway made that it is a thing of beauty, cement sidewalks laid, shrubs, flowers and trees planted in the parkways. All the natural beauty was taken advantage of.....reaching back into a paradise of pines and moss covered oaks.....

The developers are constantly making improvements on this property. Even now there is a 1,400 foot Artesian well, and water has been piped to every building site, and will be furnished free for all time."