USS Ponchatoula Memorial

Two Navy ships have carried the name, both taken from Ponchatoula Creek. The first, the tanker USS Ponchatoula (AOG-38), was commissioned in 1944. The one this memorial honors is the fleet oiler USNS Ponchatoula (T-AO-148), in service from 1956 until 1992. The monument is a scale replica of her stern, designed by David Cedillo of Baytown, Texas, and dedicated on May 16, 2015, after the ship was towed to Texas for scrapping in 2014 and artifacts were salvaged for it. It stands a short walk from the depot, close to the tracks of the town the creek named.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tickfaw State Park — 12 mi
  A floodplain park on the Tickfaw River, with cypress-tupelo swamp, bottomland hardwoods and about 4.75 miles of trails and boardwalks, plus a nature center with an 800-gallon river aquarium.
• Fontainebleau State Park — 26 mi
  Lakeshore park on the Northshore where Tchefuncte potters, Acolapissa and Choctaw lived, and where 153 people were enslaved at Marigny's sugar and brick plantation by 1840; the mill ruin still stands.

More markers nearby

• Ponchatoula Depot — steps away
• PFC Raymond "Mike" Clausen, Jr. — 1.0 mi
• Hammond Junior College — 4.6 mi
• City Of Hammond — 4.9 mi