Cisterns

French Quarter courtyard with child and cistern. Courtesy of Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Elvert M. Cormack, Historic New Orleans Collection, 1987.290.42.

Cisterns are designed to hold water. They are typically made of wood and look like barrels, although they can be made of brick and plaster, especially if designed to store water underground. However, most are designed to hold water above ground on circular brick foundations. Cisterns are usually positioned in advantageous places to best catch rainwater. Often these places are off the corners of houses, where homeowners would engineer gutters so that they filled the cistern. Sometimes cistern bases, typicaly made of brick, catch artifacts from the period in which they were used. However, because they were designed to permanently hold cistern barrels, they are more likely than not empty. A cistern base for one of the wooden barrel-like cisterns that would have been positioned near the edge of a house to best capture rainwater.

Click between images of cistern bases recovered on archaeological sites.

Historic Photographs of Cistern Bases and Cisterns

Brick-lined cistern base from Guste Homes. Courtesy of ESI and UNO ARC.
Courtyard with cistern, New Orleans. Courtesy of Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Large House with Cistern. Courtesy of Historic New Orleans Collection, 1982.127.191.
French Quarter courtyard with child and cistern. Courtesy of Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Elvert M. Cormack, Historic New Orleans Collection, 1987.290.42.

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Cisterns were more than likely manufactured locally, like Rigamer & Wahlig. Rigamer & Wahlig was one of a few cistern factories across the city. However, cistern factories could also employ coopers, or people who made wooden barrels.

Rigamer & Wahlig Business Card. Courtesy of Business Cards Series, Local Business Digital Collections, City Archives & Special Collections, New Orleans Public Library.

Cistern foundation from Union Chapel. Courtesy of ESI and UNO ARC.

This is a cistern base from Union Chapel, a Black Methodist Church in the "Back of town" neighborhood. The cistern could have been only for members of Union Chapel, or it could have also been a water source for its congregation, many of whom lived near it while it was in operation. This cistern appears to be inside, not outside, a building. The building is likely made of brick, since the bricks are positioned on-end to better support a heavy weight.

A photograph of Cameron Jail provides an example of a large, two-story shed designed to cover a cistern. The building might have only three side, with one side open to better access the cistern.

Cameron Jail. Courtesy of McNeese State University, Historic Photographs of Southwest Louisiana, Louisiana Digital Library.

Cistern Screened Against Mosquitoes. Courtesy of Alexander Allison Photograph Collection, City Archives and Special Collections, New Orleans Public Library.

Once the city engineered New Orleans' comprehensive sewerage, water, and drainage system, cisterns, like wells and privies, became obsolete. In fact, by 1905 they were clearly understood as a nuisance, once it became accepted that mosquitos spread the disease, Yellow Fever, and that they bred in stagnant water from sources like uncovered cisterns. By 1905, the city council ordered that all cisterns include covers to keep mosquitos out.