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A city born and reborn from disaster
Taxes levied after the terrible Rhône flood of 1711 led to the creation of the city of Port Saint Louis du Rhône. Once a flourishing port, it was struck by an economic crisis, but is now returning to life.
Winter 1711: the river flood was so large it changed the course of the Rhône over a stretch of 25 km, between Chamone and the sea. 
The residents of the area, whose possessions were located on the new path of the riverbed, lost everything.
The King’s Council looked for the money to compensate the residents. It created an ad hoc tax: starting in 1723 the provinces of Lyonnais, Dauphiné, Languedoc, and Provence had to pay a duty on the transportation of salt on the waterways. This toll was also used to finance diking for the new branch of the river, as well as the 1737 construction of the Saint Louis tower, near a chapel dedicated to the sainted king that the diocese had recently consecrated.
The king's engineer, Sénez, and de Vacquières, the subdelegate for the Intendant of Provence (a local agent for the royal government), directed the work, unaware that the tower would create a city.
This tower, at the mouth of the Rhône, had three roles: a lighthouse, a customs house, and a defence against pillagers. It was armed by two or three cannons, guarded by a few invalid men. Sheltered by its reassuring presence, fishermen began to build cabins.
Then came the Revolution. In 1789, the Provençals renamed it the River Mouth Tower, then the Monnaidière Tower, after the Arles revolutionaries the Monnaidiers (in turn named for the street where they met, Rue de la Monnaie).
The tower reverted to its original name after the Revolution. Military engineers occupied it and then turned it over to the government's civil engineering department.
In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the construction of the Arles canal, which would take 70 years to complete! At that time, it was only an area of marshland infested with mosquitoes. Malaria decimated the crews working on this huge construction project; however, this didn't stop Napoleon III from initiating the digging of the Saint Louis canal. Intended to allow the communication of boats drawing up to 6 m of water between the Gulf of Fos and navigable freshwater routes, the project included a canal 50 m wide, a 6 ha basin, and a lock 160 m long and 22 m wide.
The groundbreaking took place in 1864. The work opened to traffic in 1871, although construction lasted three more years. The Compagnie Générale de Navigation was set up in 1880, which launched the port. The Arles–Port Saint Louis rail line, brought into service in 1887, brought industrialists rushing into the area. The municipality, straddling Arles and Fos, became independent in 1904. A half-century of rapid growth followed, peaking in the 1960s.
But at the start of the 1970s, when the French government decided to create the Fos port and industrial complex, Port Saint Louis' decline began, a decline to which several remnants of the golden age, now derelict industrial areas, attest.
As a first step towards renewal, the central basin—nearly devoid of commercial boats—became a gorgeous marina in 1992. Taking advantage of the vacant spaces, boatyards and dry boat storage were developed, in particular Port Napoleon, which has become the biggest ongoing used boat show in the Mediterranean (see inset).
And the tower? Since 1973, the municipality has managed the emblematic monument. Now restored, it houses the tourism office. It has been on the registry of historical monuments since 1942.
