Park Site

The park stands on a racetrack. Part of the old Lafreniere grant became Jefferson Downs, which ran until 1965, when Hurricane Betsy devastated the area; the track was rebuilt near Lake Pontchartrain in Kenner and the old site sat vacant. Voters approved a bond issue to buy it on February 10, 1973, and the parish acquired the rest in June 1974. A master plan followed in January 1975, ground was broken on September 16, 1977, and the park was dedicated on November 6, 1982. A lagoon with three islands anchors its 155 acres.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 — 8.8 mi
  New Orleans' oldest surviving city of the dead, opened in 1789 after the fire of 1788 and the burial place of Homer Plessy, reachable only on a guided tour since March 2015.
• Congo Square — 8.9 mi
  The 2.35-acre corner of Louis Armstrong Park where, from 1817, New Orleans confined Sunday dancing by enslaved people to one place, and where crowds of hundreds gathered to drum, dance and trade.
• Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 — 9.0 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.
• The Historic New Orleans Collection — 9.2 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

• LaFreniere Plantation — steps away
• Parish of Jefferson — 0.3 mi
• La Providence — 2.6 mi
• Cannes Brûlées — 2.8 mi