BATON ROUGE, LA – After years of dredging, detours, progress updates, and carefully worded completion estimates, state officials announced this week that the LSU Lakes construction site has officially become old enough to qualify for historical landmark status.
The designation follows a lengthy review in which historians concluded the construction has become “an important part of Baton Rouge’s cultural identity,” with many residents unable to remember a time when excavators, orange barrels, and temporary fencing weren’t permanent features of the lakes.
“We’ve reached the point where preserving the construction may be more historically significant than completing it,” one official explained. “Several of the original traffic cones are now considered artifacts.”
Officials say interpretive plaques will soon identify notable landmarks throughout the project, including “The Excavator That Never Moved,” “The Famous Temporary Detour,” and “The Spot Where Residents Have Been Promising It’ll Be Finished Soon Since The Last Decade.”
The official ribbon-cutting ceremony is now expected to be attended by the grandchildren of the project’s original supporters.
