Pontchartrain Beach: New Orleans' Beloved Lakefront Amusement Park

Before the casinos. Before the waterfront development. Before any of it, there was Pontchartrain Beach — and for generations of New Orleans families, there was no better way to spend a summer day than at the edge of the lake.

The Lakefront

Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park opened in 1928 on the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, just a few miles from the French Quarter. The location was perfect: a wide stretch of beach, a cool lake breeze, and enough room to build something that felt genuinely grand. Over the following decades, the park grew into a full-scale amusement park with roller coasters, a midway, a swimming beach, and one of the most beloved collections of rides in the South.

The Zephyr roller coaster was the centerpiece — a wooden coaster that opened in 1939 and ran for decades, becoming as much a part of New Orleans summer as crawfish boils and brass bands. Generations of kids measured their courage by whether they were old enough to ride the Zephyr.

The Culture

Pontchartrain Beach was also a window into the complex history of New Orleans. For much of its early history, the park was segregated — a painful fact that shaped the experience of the city's Black residents, who were excluded from the main park and relegated to a separate area. In 1963, following sustained civil rights pressure, the park desegregated. It would operate for two more decades as an integrated institution before closing for good.

The End

Pontchartrain Beach closed in 1983, a victim of declining attendance, deferred maintenance, and the changing economics of amusement parks. The rides were auctioned off. The Zephyr was demolished. The land was eventually redeveloped. What remains is memory — and the particular bittersweet feeling of a New Orleans summer that no longer exists quite the way it once did.

The Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park New Orleans Retro T-shirt is for everyone who rode the Zephyr. Find it in the New Orleans collection.