Every modern city has humble beginnings. They’re locations are chosen by necessity as much as geography. New York, Paris, San Francisco, Venice, St. Louis, and London all share the common thread with New Orleans - water. New Orleans was a portage to allow access between the gulf and the Mississippi river. Likewise, Chicago was placed to connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River.
By way of the Mississippi from Canada, France laid claim to a large portion of North America in 1682. After a few attempts at colonizing the south, a financier and possessor of the colony, decided to build a city close to the coast along the river as a gateway to the passage through mainland North America, “Thirty leagues up the river, a town that should be named New Orleans, which one could reach by the river or Lake Pontchartrain.” An account of the planned settlement by Le Blond de la Tour of New Orleans in April 1722:
Projected a simple gridiron of streets with a public square in the center, four square blocks back of the river extending in each direction above and below and six blocks back of the river. The blocks flanking the public square were marked with a Fleur-de-lis, indicating that they were to be reserved for royal use, and on the block facing the square, a site for the parish church was designated. The streets were given names such as Royal, Bourbon, Chartres, Conti, St Peter, St Ann, St Philip, and St Louis.
This first plan is, of course, a description of what is today called the French Quarter.
From the onset, the city of New Orleans seemed to be forever in fluctuation. What started as a Royal Province, and was settled as a property and port of the Company of the Indies, found so many problems and such little profits that the company petitioned the King to take back the colony. Soon to be ceded to the Spanish, and reluctantly accepted, New Orleans was a burden. Despite the trading of their home between monarchs, early New Orleanians were not immediately put off. France regained official possession by treaty with Spain under Napoleon, but again, the inhabitants were not daunted. They continued to be who they were. Some short period after, the United States purchased Louisiana and its counterpart, New Orleans.
At this time New Orleans was still comparatively small in size and population. Still very French, it was about one mile along the river, and one third of a mile deep. There were merely three suburbs, or fauborugs. But with the agreement New Orleans was to become a significant part of the Union and hoards of Americans reached New Orleans. Bringing with them, the American dream, industries, and English. The city began to grow, drastically. But much of the Creole, “mild and amiable people with much less energy and irascibility than the emigrants from other states,” were being eclipsed by the invasion of Americans and Europeans, and were unhappy.
Much of the New Orleans iconography would continue to develop for a time. The list of things that are first evoked, by the mere mention of the words ‘New Orleans’ were being complied. Many of the French traditions reestablished themselves, with an American, Spanish, and African flavor. Of course the staples of celebrations, parades and carnivals, and also the music and dancing. Too, the classic architecture, recognized as New Orleanian would take hold of the growing city. Creole cottage, shotgun house, and the plantation style would all have significant contributions to the standing image of New Orleans. Much is still visible, and most has resisted change remarkably well, even through the seventies and eighties when house renovations and modernization was a rising suburban trend across the country.
Like the French Quarter, the early plantations located in the Lower Ninth were settled on the high ground down river. The proximity to the river was initially turbulent because of the frequent flooding. Once the levee system could control much of the river, that elevation became ideal to settle. But as the French Quarter grew, people moved upriver and inland, including the American section across Canal from the Quarter. All the while the Lower Ninth, particularly Holy Cross, developed very little during those years. Also, the planned grid structure in the center of the city was not charted to extend in to the Lower Ninth. The plantations were initially long thin tracts of land stretching away from the river and were not subdivided until the mid nineteenth century. These newly divided parcels brought growth to the Lower Ninth. Many of the classic cottages from this time remain on the high ground along the river. These cottages are contemporary of and an accurate representation of the iconic New Orleans architecture. It was still many years until the rest of the Lower Ninth was completely settled.
