The beginnings of life on the peninsula

The lord of Lège and the lord of La Teste, captal of Buch disputed the peninsula and in 1807, the limit between the communes of Lège and La Teste was definitively drawn by a straight line north of Pointe aux Chevaux and north of Truc Vert. Cap-Ferret, a district far from La Teste, remains a wild and uninhabited place.

From the end of the 18th century, seine fishermen came mainly from the south of the basin (from La Teste, Mestras or Meyran). To get closer to their place of work and save themselves long journeys by rowing or sailing from their home ports, they bring pontoons or build huts on the beaches of L'Herbe, Canon, Pirailhan , Claouey, Jacquets or Piquey located on the edge of the Arcachon basin. Some stay there longer and longer until they constitute, over time, a permanent habitat. Until around 1850, only a handful of inhabitants lived cut off from the world by the absence of a road linking Lège and the rest of the peninsula.

From the 1860s, the boom in oyster farming in the Arcachon Bay led to the creation of many oyster huts to meet the ever-increasing demand for oysters. In 1908, the 44-Hectares district was sold at auction and saw the arrival of the first inhabitants of Cap Ferret. In 1919, 493 additional hectares were sold and began the development of the peninsula in its length, in particular thanks to the road linking Cap Ferret and the village of Grand Piquey.

Lège-Cap-Ferret during the war

During the Second World War, like all the French coast from Belgium to Spain, Cap-Ferret was in a "forbidden zone" and a few blockhouses of the Atlantic Wall were built there. The one closest to the entrance to the Bassin in front of “Hortense” is “made up” by the artists of the Organization Todt to look like a villa: fake tiles and fake windows are painted on the concrete. At the time of their retirement, at the end of August 1944, in addition to various sabotages affecting the electricity and telephone lines, the German occupants blew up the lighthouse which, since 1840, had signaled the entrance to the Basin.

From war to reunification

From the 1950s, development from the north of the peninsula accelerated thanks to the influx of Bordeaux residents going there by the recently built road. Although tourism in Cap Ferret has taken place for several decades thanks to the Arcachon – Cap Ferret maritime link allowing visitors to visit the tip and the ocean beaches, it was not until the 1960s that Cap Ferret sees its attractiveness explode. Since then, several tens of thousands of seasonal tourists have visited the villages of the peninsula each year.

It was in 1976 that the current territory of the commune took the name of "Lège-Cap-Ferret", when the southern part of the peninsula (belonging to the commune of La Teste-de-Buch) was attached to the commune of Lege. On this territory were the villages of Grand Piquey, Piraillan, Le Canon, L'Herbe, La Vigne, Le Cap Ferret.