Home

Our History

In 1957, Hurricane Audrey struck and seriously damaged parts of lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. At the time, the late Harry Caldwell, founder of Harry's Dive Shop, was a lineman with the telephone company in Knoxville, Tennessee. Louisiana needed additional manpower to run the much needed telephone communications to the affected areas. Many employees of Southern Telephone Company were transferred to New Orleans immediately and without much preparation.

Since Harry was working in Louisiana while his family remained in Knoxville (until he could find a large enough place to live), he found an activity that kept him intellectually intrigued and physically occupied. That "something" turned out to be SCUBA. In 1959, Harry became active in the Dixie Divers, a local dive club at the time. From his typewritten diver's logbook, we know that Harry and his many friends dived everywhere they could from Lake Pontchartrain to the offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Harry's interest in scuba grew to the point of sharing his knowledge and abilities through teaching the public to scuba dive in the early 1960s at the Lee Circle YMCA on St. Charles and later at the New Orleans Athletic Club.

After an unfortunate accident at the phone company, Harry was forced into early retirement. Instead of retiring and doing nothing, he bit off a huge chunk of gumption and opened his own dive shop at 1531 Metairie Road. The business rapidly outgrew this location and, one year later, Harry's Dive Shop
moved to a larger facility at 2513 Metairie Road. In 1976, Harry purchased his own property on Airline Highway where he designed and built his own shop and in-ground, indoor, heated, AAU Olympic, 16 foot deep, swimming pool.

Today, with the support of her husband, children, friends, and valued employees, Harry's younger daughter, Cindy, continues on with the tradition of Harry's Dive Shop by upholding Harry's own high standards of quality and
integrity. Harry's Dive Shop stocks items that fit the needs, wants, and tastes of the youngest snorkeler to the most experienced scuba diver. All inventory items are high quality, name brand products from dive equipment manufacturers with excellent reputations in service and quality.

Instead of sitting home reading about where we went and what we did, get up and go with us. See more of the world. Meet new people. Expand your horizons and stretch the limits of your comfort zone. As a scuba diver or non-diver, you are welcome to join us on our many adventures and escapades to some of the best vacations ever imagined.

Harry's Dive Shop is the oldest and largest full service dive shop in the Greater New Orleans area. It is also the only dive shop that continues to be owned and operated by the same family since it first opened in 1971.