Pilottown (or Pilot Town) is an unincorporated community and ghost town in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, United States. It serves as a base for river pilots to guide ships across the bar and up and down the Mississippi River. As of 2020, there are no permanent residential population in the community.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the French settlement and fort that preceded Pilottown near the mouth of the Mississippi was known as La Balize, a name that meant "seamark" in French.
History
thumb|left|Pilottown, Louisiana, as ships pass by on the Mississippi
thumb|left|Before Katrina
Pilottown was constructed and settled after September 1860 in its current location. It replaced the earlier village of La Balize, that had been founded more than 160 years earlier downriver. After the hurricane of September 14–15, 1860, blew its buildings down and destroyed the area in a storm surge, La Balize was finally abandoned.