Tulane geographer and author Richard Campanella unmasks the real story behind Monkey Hill in Audubon Zoo, thought by many to be Works Progress Administration project to show the kiddies of (very flat) New Orleans what a hill is. The truth: The Civil Works Administration "aimed to drain a wet thicket on the batture by digging a 1,200-foot-long lagoon and expanding the parkland around it, forming what are now the water bodies of the Audubon Zoo's Louisiana Swamp, Jaguar Jungle and South American Pampas exhibits. Workers then used the spoil from the excavations to form a hill a few hundred feet inland."
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