Podcast 47 is the first of a four-part series on early New Orleans street railways. We’re talking about streetcars that pre-date our iconic arch roof streetcars from 1923, and the red streetcars from 2004. Beginning with the origins of public transit with omnibuses to steam railroad lines, to mule-drawn streetcars, we present getting around before electrification.
The New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad (NO&CRR) launched the first street rail line, from Baronne Street to Carrollton in 1835. This was a steam-powered line. This 1830s illustration of the Carrollton Hotel shows the steam locomotive for the Carrollton line on the left.
As Uptown expanded, residents complained about the smoke and noise of the train. NO&CRR switched from steam railroad operations to mule-drawn streetcars in the 1840s. They used Stephenson Co. “bobtail” streetcars pulled by mules.
Downtown Bobtails
p
The New Orleans City Railrod Company (NOCRR) inaugurated the Canal and Esplanade lines in 1861. While trying other streetcar models, they quickly settled on the Stephenson bobtails as well.
Facilities
After switching from steam power to mule power, NO&CRR built a barn at St. Charles and Napoleon Avenues. This is the layout of that corner, via the Robinson Atlas of 1883.
Esplanade streetcar approaching the Esplanade barn, 1864
Esplanade Station, 1883
Four Ways to Support NOLA History Guy
Buy my books! Edward Branley is the author of six books on New Orleans history. They’re available from local booksellers and all the usual online suspects.
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi dot com. I just love this concept as a way to say thank you/tip creators you enjoy. Our idea of monetization is buying books and having us come to speak. If you see me at a coffee shop, stop and say hi. Otherwise, I’ll raise coffee cup to you if you treat me.
Become a patron. Yes, we’re on Patreon. A lot of creators use the platform for direct monetization, and that’s great for them. We don’t have “exclusive content” for patrons. Still, if you think our history stuff is worth a dollar a month, go join!
Podcast 44 features a Boyd Cruise painting of “The Levee” on the Mississippi River.
“The Levee” by Boyd Cruise
Alvik Boyd Cruise painted this exciting and busy waterfront scene in 1959. While THNOC dates the setting as 1859 (probably a typo from the actual date the artist created it), the inclusion of the Steamboat Fashion puts it at 1865-1866. While so many of Cruise’s paintings focus on particular homes and buildings, this one casts a wider net. Instead of capturing the feel of a particular building in time for a Historic American Building Survey, the artist re-creates the activity in the port, mid-19th century.
This painting shows activity in the second-largest port in the US in the 1800s. What’s particularly interesting is that Cruise details the port after the Civil War. When we think of 1865, images of the destruction and horrors of war often come to mind. Many forget that the direct participation of New Orleans in the war ended in 1862. By 1865, the Mississippi was open to riverboat activity from Vicksburg to New Orleans. With the war over, investors contracted shipbuilders to get more boats in the water that would transport cotton from plantations to the port for export.
Cotton
Bales of cotton stand on the dock. They await loading onto ocean-going ships for export. These steamboats brought “raw” cotton from plantations to New Orleans. Those big bales were too bulky for export. So, cotton factors purchased the bales from ship captains. They transported the cotton to industrial pressing plants. Think of a trash compactor in a home kitchen, but on a much larger scale. They returned the compressed bales seen in the painting to the dock. Ocean-going vessels transported those bales up the Atlantic coast and to Europe.
The Historic BK House is a local museum with an incredible story.
Historic BK House by Boyd Cruise
This painting of the Historic BK House was Boyd Cruise’s last painting. He completed it in in 1962.The house is located at 1113 Rue Chartres (across from the Old Ursuline Convent).
Cruise painted numerous houses and buildings in the French Quarter, visualizing how they looked in the 19th Century. While most of Cruise’s works imagined the buildings in the 1850s, this one is post-war. Local auctioneer Joseph LeCarpentier commissioned François Correjolles for the design and James Lambert to build it. LeCarpentier sold the house in 1833. Dominique Lanata, a grocer, acquired the house in 1865. He didn’t live there, renting it out until selling it in 1904. Frances Parkinson Keyes (the “K” in “B-K”) acquired the house in 1945. She restored it and wrote a number of stories and novels while living there.
So, the B-K House has a rich history that naturally captured the imagination of Boyd Cruise. To start off the re-structuring of the NOLA History Guy Podcast, our first four-week series will be paintings by Boyd Cruise. Cruise received a number of commissions through government-sponsored programs. He painted houses and buildings in the Quarter as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) program. What’s fantastic about Cruise is that he took technical drawings and modern photographs of Vieux Carré homes, then time-shifted them back to the 19th Century. He added people and activity, setting the viewer in an earlier New Orleans.
Timing
The specific timing of the view is interesting, in that the scene pre-dates Brevet Major PGT Beauregard’s time as a resident of the house. Beauregard honeymooned here with his second wife in 1860. He lived in the house after the war, until 1868. Beauregard then moved in with his son, René, at 934 Rue Royal. Since New Orleans’ direct involvement in the war ended in 1862, the port was operational and local businesses grew and thrived. Here’s the THNOC caption for the painting:
View of the Beauregard – Keyes house, 1113 Chartres Street in the Vieux Carre. The house has columns, portico and curved side staicases, and ornamental ironwork. Children play at the side of the house, and a fruit vendor and two women are in front of the house.
Let’s start with the children. Two kids play behind the gate to the Historic BK House’s side garden. A third tries to fly a kite on the sidewalk. Two women chat on the sidewalk, just down from the kite boy. What are they discussing? Are they connected to the house, or just passing by? The fruit vendor heads down Rue Chartres, selling his wares. He’s typical of vendors, walking through the streets, offering some convenience to folks who don’t have time to go to the market. Cruise regularly added children and animals to his scenes, providing the viewer with scale. A gentleman is on the first floor, calling on someone in the house. Is it the woman who answered the door? So many writing possibilities in a Boyd Cruise painting!
Podcasts
NOLA History Guy Podcast has a new format for 2025. We’re presenting series of pods with common themes. The first series, for January, 2025, features Boyd Cruise podcasts. You can hear the first in the series, about the Le Pretre Masion (also known as the “Sultan House”), on Dauphine Street and Orleans Avenue.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception, Jesuits on Baronne Street, is still there.
1874 Illustration of Jesuits Church and the College of the Immaculate Conception.
Jesuits on Baronne Street
New Orleans author and historian Derby Gisclair shared an illustration of Baronne Street from 1871 on Facebook. Here’s Derby’s description:
An 1874 illustration of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, otherwise known in New Orleans as the Jesuit Church on Baronne Street. The Moorish church was erected in 1851 alongside The College of the Immaculate Conception established four years earlier. The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) were given extensive lands in New Orleans by Bienville, an area of land known as the Jesuit Plantation that encompassed what we know today as the Central Business District and the Warehouse District.
Their orange groves were located on land that now includes Orange Street in the Lower Garden District. Le Citron Bistro, at the corner of Orange Street and Religious Street, is one of the oldest buildings in the city and recalls the area’s past.
So, Derby points out that the school pre-dates the church, having opened in 1847.
School re-design
The school side of the property contained the building fronting Baronne, along with a walled courtyard and a second building fronting Common Street. The school enjoyed a great deal of post-war growth. Therefore, the priests planned expansion. They demolish the original property. So, they replaced it with a three-story building that ran from the church to the corner. At this time, the order operated the College of the Immaculate Conception as both a high school and college. It was common for Catholic schools to offer go beyond the basic high school diploma program. Therefore, the Jesuits offered baccalaureate degrees.
Jesuits Church, Baronne Street, ca. 1880. Mugnier photo.
This Mugnier photo from 1880ish shows the new building. The schools continued to grow! The order moved the college uptown, on St. Charles Avenue. That location became Loyola University of the South (Now Loyola New Orleans) in 1911. The high school remained on Baronne Street. The school changed its name to Jesuit High School, reflecting the college’s relocation.
Jesuit Church and High School, Baronne Street, late 1920s. Franck Studios photo.
Since the high school continued to enjoy growth, the order acquired property at S. Carrollton Ave. and Banks St. in Mid-City. So they moved the high school to that location in 1926. The school continues to enjoy success at that location. This meant that the Baronne Street building stood unoccupied. The Jesuits leased the property to a developer in 1929. They replaced the school with an 18-story office building, named the Pere Marquette Building. The office building was converted into a hotel and is now the Renaissance New Orleans Pere Marquette Hotel.
Jesuit Church on Baronne Street. Franck Studios photo, ca. 1948
Demolition of the school and construction of the office building in 1929 took a toll on the church. Pilings driven for the building shook the block so much, they severely damaged the church’s foundation. The order was forced to dismantle the church building and build it over on a newer, stronger foundation. The re-built church now includes the familiar minarets.
Four Ways to Support NOLA History Guy
Buy my books! Edward Branley is the author of six books on New Orleans history. They’re available from local booksellers and all the usual online suspects. While we always encourage “buy local,” we’re OK with you buying from your favorite source.
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi dot com. I just love this concept as a way to say thank you/tip creators you enjoy. Our idea of monetization is buying books and having us come to speak. If you see me at a coffee shop, stop and say hi. Otherwise, I’ll raise coffee cup to you if you treat me.
Become a patron. Yes, we’re on Patreon. A lot of creators use the platform for direct monetization, and that’s great for them. We don’t have “exclusive content” for patrons. Still, if you think our history stuff is worth a dollar a month, go join!
The White League engaged in terrorism by lighting Lee.
Lighting Lee Circle
Photos of Lee Circle at night. The first, set back from the monument, is a John Tibule Mendes shot taken in 1916. The second is from New Orleans Public Service, Incorporated, from 1928. Caption for the 1916 photo (via THNOC):
Poorly-exposed night view of the Lee Monument at Lee Circle in the Central Business District looking along Saint Charles Avenue towards Uptown. Streetcar tracks are visible in the foreground. The Lee Monument honors Confederate General Robert E. Lee and was dedicated on February 22, 1884. John Roy of New Orleans designed the mound and column while Alexander Doyle designed the bronze likeness of Lee that stands atop the column.
Accordingly, New Orleans Railway & Light Company provided the electric power for lighting Lee in 1916.
The second photo shows the monument from a closer perspective.
Why Lee?
The purpose erecting a statue to the traitor Lee was simple: assertion of white supremacy in New Orleans. So, Confederate sympathizers terrorized the population of New Orleans from the start of the Union occupation in 1862. Unionists, mostly Irish and Germans, went to the river levees to greet the Union squadron under the command of Flag-Officer Farragut. Despite their defeat, white men shot and killed them, forcing others to retreat from the levee. Confederates held the Irish and Germans responsible for the loss of the city. During the attack, the Irish and German troops at Fort Jackson mutinied, sealing the city’s fate. Local lost-causers formed the White League, formalizing their opposition to a Union-controlled state government. Therefore, the White League was, for all intents and purposes, a terrorist organization.
So, fast forward to twenty years after the conflict. The White League pressed their control of the city. hey used Carnival organizations and social clubs to bolster the terrorist violence of their militia. The city’s demographics changed radically in the 1880s, with the influx of Sicilians into New Orleans. The Sicilians brought their own criminal element with them. The Mafia challenged the White League’s control. This required a response from the established criminals.
The monument
To emphasize the economic control the White League held, they commissioned a column of “white Georgia marble” to be placed at the center of Tivoli Circle. They topped that column with a statue of the traitor Lee. Sculptor Alexander Doyle crafted that statue. it was dedicated on Washington’s Birthday in 1884. While the outward forms of support for the monument stated it was built to recognize the sacrifices of the Confederacy, its underlying purpose was asserting power.
The lights
The White League experimented with illuminating the monument almost immediately. The first attempts involved burning magnesium in the urns around the column. This lit up Lee Circle for miles. Of course, the magnesium burned out and had to be replaced. By the 1910s, urban electrification extended into residential areas of the city. First came the streetcars, in the 1890s, Power lines extended from the streetcar routes. With Lee, it was a matter of someone willing to pay the light bill.
Why bother with lighting? The monument stood at the Western end of the Central Business District. Tourists rarely ventured past Poydras Street. In the early part of the 20th century, most buildings in New Orleans were three or four stories. The monument towered over the neighborhood. Light it up at night, and Lee was visible for miles. That pleased the White League. It communicated to everyone their ownership and control of the city. That made the light bill worth it.
The Brothers of the Sacred Heart moved into Faubourg Marigny during the Civil War, Bay to City.
Bay to City
At the beginning of the Civil War, the Brothers of the Sacred Heart (BOSH) stood at a crossroads. The Institute operated St. Stanislaus College in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, since 1854. With secession of Louisiana and Mississippi, the Union Navy blockaded the Western Gulf Coast, anticipating an invasion of New Orleans. The Brothers closed St. Stanislaus to boarders.
To fully appreciate this move, consider a trip from the city to the bay. We’re not talking about an hour’s drive. In 1861, you’d load up a coach or wagon with your boy(s) and their luggage, and head about 100 miles east. That was a eight hour ride. With Farragut’s ships and gunboats, along with Butler’s 30,000 troops on Ship Island, safety was a serious concern. While families understood the concerns, they didn’t want to just give up on a BOSH education for their boys.
To the City
Brother Athanasius Faugier, S.C.
So, the BOSH contacted the Archbishop of New Orleans, Jean-Marie Odin, about setting up a presence in the city. Odin agreed, and connected Brother Athanasius Faugier, S.C, of St. Stanislaus, with Father Anthony Durier, pastor of Annunciation Parish in Faubourg Marigny. Fr. Durier helped the Brothers set up shop in the Marigny. This made a lot of sense. Brothers from France worked with a French archbishop to open a school in a very-French neighborhood. Fr. Durier loaned a house to the BOSH. They renovated that house to accommodate twenty-five boarders. They then rented a house on Union Street (now Touro Street) and opened the school. The school was about six blocks away from the boarding house. The 1883 Robinson Atlas segment above shows Annunciation Church in block 492.
Fr. Anthony Durier
This arrangement continued through the end of the rebellion. The BOSH packed up and returned to the Bay. It wasn’t long, though, that Archbishop Odin invited the institute to establish a permanent presence in New Orleans. The BOSH purchased the house at Chartres and Barracks Streets in 1869, and St. Aloysius opens.
Thanks to the faculty members of Brother Martin High School, who assembled much of this information for their Day of Experience, “Exploring the Origins of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans.”
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.
Recent Comments