Tourists keep asking me how and when the Garden District came to be called
by that name. Can you help?
Larry Barthe
Dear Larry,
Of course, I can. "Help" is my middle name.
The Garden District was a suburb laid out in the 1830s and settled in the
1840s. It was initially part of what was then called the city of Lafayette,
which was incorporated into the city of New Orleans in 1852. In the last decade
of the antebellum period, the business elite of New Orleans made this section
of Lafayette the most prestigious residential neighborhood in the city. The
area gradually acquired the name "Garden District" as a descriptive phrase
applied to a place of gracious living where wealthy, politically and socially
important citizens built fabulous homes surrounded by exquisite gardens.
Seventy-five years before there was any official zoning in New Orleans, the
residents of the Garden District created a neighborhood based on common backgrounds,
interests, professions, religion, politics and economic interests. Although
there were a few "outsiders" who bought property in the area, the residents
were overwhelmingly Anglo-American and very rich.
The Garden District was one of several exclusive suburbs that were developing in major cities during the early and middle 1800s. In Boston, there was Chestnut Hill, and in New York, there was Brooklyn. Philadelphia had Spring Garden and Kensington, and San Francisco had Nob Hill and Russian Hill.
The Daily Delta, one of the many 19th century newspapers, wrote frequently
of the delights to be found in the suburbs of Lafayette: "Here a number of
merchants, and other citizens whose business is conducted in New Orleans, have
fixed their residences, so that they many have larger breathing spaces, greater
room, and such of those rural enjoyments as the jaded denizen of the city so
eagerly pants for. Here they may occupy whole or half squares, and build houses
of convenient proportion -- here they have gardens, shrubbery, beautiful trees,
and grass plots, for children to play upon and yards in which to raise fowl
and have their tables supplied with fresh eggs."
Although in the 19th century the Garden District comprised a somewhat larger and less clearly defined area, today it refers to the 66 blocks bounded by St. Charles Avenue, Magazine Street, Jackson Avenue and Louisiana Avenue.
Mark Twain often visited New Orleans, and he wrote of the Garden District
in glowing terms: "... mansions stand in the center of large grounds, and rise,
garlanded with roses, out of the midst of swelling masses of shining green
foliage and many colored blossoms. No houses could well be in better harmony
with their surroundings, or more pleasing to the eye, or more homelike and
comfortable looking."
Were Twain to return today, he would find things pretty much the same.
Hey Blake,
Does anybody know about
the origin of the name "Barataria"? Also, who originally
inhabited that place?
Mano Lico Oakanu
Dear Mano,
"Barataria," with its many spelling variations, is a Romance word that signifies "deception." It is also the name of a fictional isle. In the adventures of Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, Sancho Panza becomes governor of an island called Barataria. When asked about his experience, he says, "I
governed it to perfection for 10 days; and lost my rest all the time; and learned
to look down upon all the governments in the world: I got out of it by taking
to flight, and fell into a pit where I gave myself up for dead, and out of
which I escaped alive by a miracle."
As for the early inhabitants, Native Americans migrated to the newly formed land not long after the river built this area of the delta. Archeological investigations have found village sites along the bayous dating back some 2,000 years. During the early 1800s, bands of pirates and smugglers made the shores and islands of Barataria Bay their headquarters. Farther to the southeast, the pirates built another fort on the island of Grand Terre. By 1811, both ends of the island were fortified by the pirates, led by none other than Jean Lafitte.
