Campus 1943 - 44

[Turbine]

Louisiana's Campus
1943-44

Since drying out (for the most part) in the late teens, Cypress Swamp was reflooded in the summer of 43 and was renamed from Cypress Grove to Cypress Lake.

[CajunFun]

Notice the year.

It was flooded for fire fighting water during WW II.

[USL1970]

"I often went to theater and dance productions there when I was growing up on the campus in the 1940s. The theory that it was created as a reservoir to help fight fires is just not true. The cypress trees were dying and that is why it was flooded. My parents were very protective of all the trees on the campus, oaks as well as cypresses." Joel Fletcher (President Fletcher's son on Facebook - UL Special Collections)

[Turbine]

The Swamps natural water source had dried up with the creation of drainage associated with Hebrard Blvd, Mckinley Street, and East St. Mary.

I suspect its contraction began much earlier than the early Twentieth Century with the construction of Johnston Street and what is now University