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Louisiana
Spanish Fort Casino Pavilion
Monday, June 26, 1882
The House Beautiful
Newspaper report
The Daily Picayune, New Orleans, LA), June 27, 1882, 3
Newspaper advertisement
The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), June 23, 1882, 2
The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), June 26, 1882, 2
The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), June 23, 1882
Wilde did not stay three days at Spanish Fort as stated. He departed the following day for Mobile where lectured on June 28.
Spanish Fort* Casino Pavilion
Spanish Fort Resort, Lake Pontchartrain at Bayou St. John, New Orleans, LA
Built: 1881 (Moses Schwartz)
Destroyed (fire): October 14, 1906
* Spanish Fort was a small village with pleasure gardens which had grown up around the site of an old colonial fort originally built by the French in 1701 and rebuilt by the Spanish in 1779.
Related:
No record has been found of Wilde's accommodation in New Orleans on this occasion. On his first visit to New Orleans ten days earlier, Wilde had stayed at the famous St. Charles Hotel. It is quite possible he stayed there again.
However, the news clipping opposite indicates that Wilde intended to reside at Spanish Fort and, if so, he would have stayed at the Spanish Fort Hotel. This seems likely.
Spanish Fort Hotel
Spanish Fort Resort, Lake Pontchartrain at Bayou St. John, New Orleans, LA
Built: 1824, as Pontchartrain Hotel (Harvey Elkins)
Renamed: c. 1835 as Spanish Fort Hotel (John Slidell)
Ownership: various subsequent owners until Moses Schwartz at the time of Wilde's visit.
The City of New Orleans c. 1885 with the Mississippi River in the foreground, and Lake Pontchartrain on the horizon. Spanish Fort is on the lake in the distance, a five mile journey by steam train from the depot at Canal and Basin Streets, price fifteen cents.
Two autograph manuscript verse fragments made by Wilde in New Orleans from his poem The Garden of Eros, signed:
1) “creamy meadow-sweet, whiter than Juno’s throat, and odorous as all Arabia.”
[compare with similar signed fragment in New York]
2) “Spirit of Beauty! Tarry yet a-while…”
Oscar Wilde In America | © John Cooper, 2024
