Barataria Preserve

Barataria began as a state park idea. In 1966 Louisiana proposed a Jean Lafitte state park on the present Preserve site but never authorized money to buy or lease the land. Supporters of that park and of enlarging Chalmette found a champion in Senator J. Bennett Johnston, and Congress created the national park in 1978, recognizing the Mississippi Delta as nationally significant. A 1988 law added folklife centers in Acadiana, and the park now has six separate units managed as three: the Crescent City, Barataria Preserve and Acadian units.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Barataria Preserve — 1.0 mi
  A Jean Lafitte National Historical Park unit of bayou, swamp and marsh on the site of a Chitimacha and Houma shell-mound landscape, with the visitor center and most trails closed for about two years of repairs.
• Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 — 10 mi
  The Garden District's 1833 cemetery of about 1,100 family tombs, closed to visitors in 2019 and reopened on October 1, 2026 for small guided tours run by the Preservation Resource Center.
• New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park — 12 mi
  A National Park Service unit created in 1994 to tell where jazz came from, with free programs and a visitor center in the French Quarter and park land inside Louis Armstrong Park.
• The Historic New Orleans Collection — 13 mi
  A French Quarter museum and research center founded in 1966, whose 2015 Purchased Lives exhibition took on New Orleans' place as the largest slave market in antebellum America.

More markers nearby

• Town of Jean Lafitte — 1.2 mi
• Poblacion de Barataria (Barataria Settlement) — 2.2 mi
• Manila Village — 3.4 mi
• Clark Cheniere — 3.4 mi