This Book is dedicated to the people of New Orleans. I have not forgotten your struggle. i I want to also dedicate this book to Rachel. I am truly blessed to have had her by my side throughout this wild adventure. ii Table of Contents Chapter 1 N.O.L.A.. 1 Jazz. 12 Mardi Gras. 14 Balconies. 16 Chapter 2 My First Visit. 19 Bourbon Street. 20 Haunted History. 22 Marie Laveau . 24 Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. 28 Chapter 3 My Second Visit. .31 Hotel Monteleone. 32 Jackson Square. 36 Pirate’s Alley. 38 French Market. 40 Café du Mondé . 42 The Riverwalk. 44 Pat O’Briens. 46 iii Chapter 4 Hurricane Katrina. 49 August 29 , 2005 . 50 Philip. 54 Chapter 5 My Third Visit. 59 Rebirth . 60 The French Quarter. 62 9th Ward. .64 Lake Pontchartrain . 68 Mississippi - Gulf of Mexico . 72 The Frenchmen Hotel. 76 The Court of Two Sisters . .78 Signs . 80 Water Towers.. 86 iv Appendixes Appendix A.. ��������������������������������������������������������������� 91 Appendix B.. ���������������������������������������������������������������97 Appendix C.. ���������������������������������������������������������������99 Appendix D. 100 Index . .101 One of the many Katrina Memorial Fleur-de-Lis’ dedicated around New Orleans. v All Fleur-de-lis’ are hand painted by local artists. vi Chapter X1 N.O.L.A. XXXXXXXXXXXXNew Orleans, Louisiana In 1682, Frenchmen Robert de La Salle sailed the Mississippi River and erected a cross somewhere near the location of New Orleans. He claimed Louisiana for his king, Louis XIV. The first French settlements were established on the Gulf Coast at Biloxi. Thirty-six years later, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville established a settlement on the Lower Mississippi River at New Orléans. It was named for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of France at the time. In September 1721 a hurricane struck the city, blowing most of the structures down. After this, the administrators enforced the grid pattern dictated by Bienville but mostly ignored by the colonists. This grid would be known as the French Quarter. In 1722, Nouvelle-Orléans was made the capital of French Louisiana, replacing Biloxi in that role. Joseph Villars Dubreuil, a pioneer in agriculture built the first plantaion levee. It led to the creation in 1724 of the Mississippi River’s original levee system. Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. 1 History of New Orleans The colony did not prosper and control was turned over to a Scotsmen named John Law. He was a private financier and speculator. He floated stock in his Company of The West and promoted Louisiana as a utopia despite the hostile natives and diseased climate. Thousands of Germans and Swiss left for Louisiana. Whenever immigration to the new colony diminished, criminals and prostitutes were deported from France to New Orleans. The first slaves arrived in 1726. A year later the Ursuline Sisters arrived and established their convent. Eventually, Law’s Company of The West collapsed, and in 1731 control was resumed by the French king. Commerce began to grow despite restrictions imposed by the French on trade. By 1763, river traffic had grown enormously with exports totaling $304,000. Then in 1755 the Seven Years’ war erupted. In1763, the war ended and Louis XV signed the Treaty of 1766 to take control, they rebelled, Paris, which ended the French driving him to Spain. On October ambitions in North America. But 25, 1769 Alexander O’Reilly, an before signing, the French king Irish-born Spanish general arrived ceded Louisiana to his cousin with 24 warships, 2,000 soldiers, the Spanish king, Charles III. and 50 artillery pieces. He executed This outraged French settlers. six ringleaders of the rebellion at When Spanish governor Don the site of the Old Mint and firmly Antonio de Ulloa arrived in established Spanish power. 2 Chapter X1 During the American Revolution, Cathedral, the Cabildo and Governor Bernardo de Galvez the Presbytere—date from this supported the American settlers period. and relaxed trade restrictions. In 1788, a fire on Good Friday destroyed 856 buildings. A second fire broke out in 1794 destroying 212 buildings. The Great Fires of New Orleans was so extensive that most of the French-style buildings were lost. After the fires, all buildings of two stories or more were to be constructed of brick. The three most impressive buildings in New Orleans—St. Louis 3 History of New Orleans In the 1790s under Baron December 20, 1803 by General Carondelet, New Orleans thrived. James Wilkinson and William C.C. He granted free trade to the Claiborne. Louisiana was admitted Americans on the Mississippi to the Union on April 30, 1812, just and made New Orleans the port six weeks before the United States of deposit. The city’s first theater declared war on Great Britain. and its first newspaper were In January 1815, despite the soon established. Gas lamps Treaty if Ghent, which had ended lit the streets and basic police the war a month earlier, British force was recruited. Drainage forces launched an attack on New ditches were dug too, to protect Orleans. Under General Andrew the city against flooding by the Jackson, pirates, Americans, Mississippi. By 1800s, refugee French gentlemen and free men of planters and slaves were color beat back the British. This pouring into New Orleans. With validated the peace treaty and them they brought the practice finally ended hostilities. of Voodoo. The first steamboats soon arrived Although ceded by Spain to after the Battle of New Orleans. France in 1800, Napoleon, who Attracted by rapid commercial was preoccupied by Europe, growth, the population grew quickly sold it to the United to more than 40,000. Frictions States for $15,000,000 to help between the French Creoles and pay for his wars. The transfer the Americans gave rise to the was officially ratified on creation of two separate districts; 4 Chapter 1 the French Quarter and an uptown immense wealth that American section. Canal Street was being generated separated the two and was known lead to the city’s expansion as neutral ground. and cultural development. The Garden District was By the mid-1830s the port was annexed in 1852. The Mardi shipping half a million bales of Gras festival became more cotton, becoming the cotton capital widely celebrated when of the world. By 1840 it was the the first parading krewe, second most important port in the Comus, founded in 1857. It nation, after New York, and the also developed a reputation population had passed 80,000. As for its courtly life, riverboat many as 35,000 steamboats docked gambling and easy living. The at the wharves in 1860, clearing only blights were the frequent $324 million worth of trade. epidemics of cholera and yellow fever. Between 1817 New Orleans soon became the and 1860 there were 23 yellow largest city in the South with a fever epidemics, killing more population of 168,000, the sixth than 28,000 people. The worst, largest city in the nation. The in 1853, killed 10,300 people. 5 History of New Orleans The Civil War brought this prosperity to an end and in 1861 New Orleans seceded from the Union. In 1862, Union Navy Captain Farragut captured New Orleans, and General Benjamin “Beast” Butler occupied the city on May 1, 1862. Butler hanged William Mumford for tearing the United States flag down from the Mint. He confiscated the property of those who refused to sign an oath of allegiance and passed an ordinance declaring that any woman who insulted a Union soldier would be regarded as a prostitute and locked up. The citizens were irate under this rule and that of his successor, General Nathaniel Banks. After the war, the city struggled to recover. The upriver plantations, which provided so much of the city’s wealth, had been destroyed. Economic shift towards the northeast left New Orleans languishing. The “Old South” never, recovered; the steamboat era was over. rights to black men. During the Poor race relations troubled attack, 37 delegates were killed the city. At the end of the Civil and 136 wounded. The riot was a War, slaves were freed but key element in Congress’s decision lived in limbo. In 1866, a white to organize Reconstruction as mob attacked Mechanics Hall a military occupation of the old in downtown New Orleans, Confederacy by federal troops. where a group of white and black men were drafting a new Federal troops withdrew in 1877 state constitution to extend full but the legal and social gains 6 Chapter 1 Americans almost always inferior to those provided to White Americans. Racial tensions only worsened as waves of Italians and Irish immigrants arrived in the late 19th century. Prositution and corruption remained rampant. In 1897, in attempt to control lawlessness that was controlling the city, Alderman Sidney Story sponsored a bill that legalized prositution in a 38-block area. Bounded by Iberville, Basin, Robertson and St. Louis streets, this area became known as “Storyville”, which birthed a new style of music called jazz. Storyville gave jazz a boost, because ,any early jazz musicians began their careers in the brothels. The Department of the made by African Americans during Navy closed Storyville down Reconstruction soon began to erode in 1917, because it feared as old Confederates resumed full that it was too tempting to political, civil, and economic power. sailors shipping out from Segregation became entrenched New Orleans to World War I in 1896 when Plessy vs. Ferguson battlefronts. The war briefly established the so-called “separate boosted business in the but equal” or better known as the shipyards but the economy Jim Crow Law. This led treatment languished during the 1920s and accommodations for African and early 1930s.