Governor Nicholls Street Wharf
The Governor Nicholls Street Wharf in New Orleans is a riverfront site named after a double-amputee Civil War general, featuring a Coast Guard tower known to ship captains as Governor Nick. In 1976, Mayor Maurice Moon Landrieu built the adjacent two-hundred-sixteen-thousand-dollar Moon Walk promenade to restore river access for residents. Demolition began at the wharf in 2025 to create a new public park.
New Orleans · from the walk “Moon Walk: New Orleans Riverfront Revealed” · audio ~3 min · Generated
Governor Nicholls Street Wharf, New Orleans
- Francis Redding Tillou Nicholls lost his left arm in 1862 and his left foot in 1863.
- On January 8, 1877, both Francis Nicholls and Stephen Packard were sworn in as Louisiana governor.
- Mayor Maurice Landrieu built the Moon Walk promenade along the New Orleans riverfront in 1976.
- Demolition began at the Governor Nicholls Street Wharf in 2025 to build a public park.
Who was the Governor Nicholls Street Wharf in New Orleans named after?
You're standing at the Governor Nicholls Street Wharf... the downriver end of one of the most unlikely public spaces in New Orleans. For most of the twentieth century, this stretch of riverfront was Sealed Off. Warehouses, wharves, railroad tracks, flood walls... the Mississippi was right here, but ordinary people couldn't reach it.......... So who was Governor Nicholls? His story is almost too dramatic to believe. Francis Redding Tillou Nicholls was a Confederate brigadier general who lost his left arm at the First Battle of Winchester in eighteen sixty-two... and then lost his left foot at Chancellorsville the following year. A double amputee, he somehow parlayed his battlefield sacrifice into political power, winning the governorship of Louisiana in eighteen seventy-six. But here's the twist... his opponent, Stephen Packard, Also claimed victory. On January eighth, eighteen seventy-seven, both men were sworn in as governor on the Same day, in different buildings. For months, Louisiana had Two governors, each backed by armed militia. It took the Compromise of eighteen seventy-seven to settle the matter.......... Now, look up. Atop this wharf, the United States Coast Guard built a traffic control tower with red and green signals to manage the enormous vessels rounding Algiers Point, one of the sharpest bends on the lower Mississippi. And here's a detail most visitors never hear... when ship captains radio in to that tower, they don't use its official name. They simply call the controller "Governor Nick."
...... But the real transformation happened in the nineteen seventies, when Mayor Maurice Landrieu — known as "Moon," a childhood nickname his older brother gave him — championed tearing down derelict wharves to build a pedestrian promenade. It cost just two hundred sixteen thousand dollars and opened in nineteen seventy-six. They called it the Moon Walk... not for the lunar landings, but for the mayor himself. It was the first time in generations that New Orleans residents could simply... walk to their own river.......... This wharf is now being transformed once more — demolition began in twenty twenty-five to create a new public park. The river keeps flowing. The city keeps reclaiming it.