Ad of the Week – advertising blasts from the past!
How you can help NOLA History Guy – Things you can do right now!
NOLA Six Word Writing Challenge – Exercise your imagination!
A Little History… The St. Bernard Public Market
The Circle Food Store, formerly the St. Bernard Public Market . Inforgmation photo, 2014
The St. Bernard Public Market
Established in 1854, the St. Bernard Market was the fourteenth public market licensed by the city. It’s located at 1522 St. Bernard Avenue, between Laharpe and Robertson Streets. The market began small, just a shelter, about 190 by 175 feet. The city purchased additional land to expand the market in 1931.
Public Markets
St. Bernard Public Market, 1941. Franck Studios photo.
The first public market in New Orleans was the French Market. Before the arrival of Jean-Baptiste LeMoyne and his explorers, the indigenous tribes used the market area as a trading post and meeting place they called “Bulbancha,” the “place of many tongues.” As the city grew, so did the market system, into the American Sector, Garden District, and Faubourg Treme. the St. Bernard Market opened as the Marigny Plantation was subdivided and sold as lots.
Upgrade and Expansion
St. Bernard Market, Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), 1930s
The market fell into serious disrepair in the 1870s. The Daily Picayune reported on 20-August-1874 that “the corner of the public well at the St. Bernard Market is completely decayed and is dangerous. Persons are constantly passing in that vicinity and are liable to fall in.” They city authorized a contract for repairs later that year.
The city screened in the St. Bernard Market in 1914. A year later, architect Sam Stone, Jr., drew plans for the market’s expansion. The city acquired additional property to expand the market in 1931. They hired Stone’s company to supervise the work.
Conversion of the market
The city started phasing out the public markets in 1940. The city sold half of the St. Bernard Market property in 1941, and the remaining half was sold after the war. Private owners converted the market into the Circle Food Store. While the store suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the owners recovered and rebuilt. The store was sold again in 2010 and continues to operate.
We’re implementing some changes to our website and other blog postings. Starting 1-September, NOLA History Guy dot com will feature new content. We’ll be presenting a series of illustrations of the French Army during the Napoleonic period. The work of artist and uniformologist Lucien Rousselot offers historic background and writing inspiration.
Additionally, we will present more articles featuring structures in the New Orleans area that have been the subject Historic American Buildings Survey projects.
The podcast will also return next week!
Vintage Ad of the Week
Ad for the Kansas City Southern Railroad in the Times-Picayune, 27-August-1949. The “Southern Belle” route was the signature “name train” of the KCS. It operated daily from New Orleans to Kansas City. Prior to 1954, KCS trains operated out of the Louisiana and Arkansas Terminal on S. Rampart Street. After 1954, KCS joined all the other passenger service operating from Union Passenger Terminal.
How You Can Help NOLA History Guy
Things you can do RIGHT NOW to help us out!
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!
In six words or less, write a story about this image. (Infrogmation photo)
Post your story to NOLAHistoryGuy.com on BlueSky, or to New Orleans Uncovered on Facebook. You can also email yours to nolasixwords@nolahistoryguy.com.
Today’s rabbit hole is an ad for a “Elliot’s Pocket Revolver.”
Elliot’s Pocket Revolver
Ad for “Elliot’s Pocket Revolver” in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 17-May-1862. This pistol also bore the name, Remington Zig-Zag Derringer. Remington manufactured this pistol in 1861 and 1862. It’s a type of pistol known as a “pepper-box.”
From the pistol’s Wikipedia entry, this photo caught my attention. The “Death To Traitors” inside the box pretty much indicates the target market of the pistol. Would it show up in New Orleans? That’s important for a story.
Rabbit holes
I presented a talk on artist Boyd Cruise last night for our “Third Thursday Lecture Series” at the Jefferson Parish Library. Cruise painted many homes and buildings in New Orleans as they appeared in the 1850s. So, I research the property at the time. The results of a basic search lead me down rabbit holes. This week, search results included a large collection of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper for 1862. Now, April and May of 1862 were exciting times in New Orleans. The Confederacy was in active rebellion against the United States, and the Union Navy sat off the Louisiana Gulf Coast, until they invaded the city at the end of April. This issue of the Newspaper includes numerous articles on how Farragut, Porter, and Butler led forces up the river to the city.
Naturally, the newspaper includes lots of advertising. My current fiction project is a story set right at this time, 1861-1862, in New Orleans. Most revolvers of the time were huge. This small pistol adds interesting dimensions to the setting.
Additional research
While a single ad starts the process, the product may not fit with the story. So, I looked up the pistol. It turns out, this particular gun may not be a good fit. From the wiki entry:
Extensive study has identified approximately 140 known examples, being that this model has quite a delicate mechanism and was replaced by the Remington-Elliot Derringer “New Repeating Pistol” even before all were assembled, the survival rate of this model is expected to be quite low.
What’s important here is that this ad became an inspiration. It confirmed that these small pistols were common. I just need to find the right model to put in a character’s pocket or waistband.
A Memorial Day update on a Purple Heart we found in the Brother Martin High School/BOSH archives.
BOSH Purple Heart Update
As part of my work in the archives at Brother Martin High School, I came across a Purple Heart decoration in its presentation box. Inside the box was the medal, ribbon, and a set of dog tags. While so many BOSH alumni served, I was surprised to find a military medal in the boxes of memorabilia and ephemera. So, I took photos and brought it down to Mr. Heine. We both agreed that we should check to see if the family would want the medal back. Sometimes when an older person passes, we box up their personal stuff, have an estate sale, etc. So many folks hate to throw out paw-paw’s high school stuff, so they bring it back to the school.
Mr. Heine checked his alumni databases, and couldn’t find the name, Richard Warr. He didn’t appear to be a Kingsman or Crusader. I wrote the post telling the story and we moved on.
This week, I received an interesting note from a member of the Ridgley family:
I was recently working on my family tree and came across this article through a Google search.
If you have never gotten to tracking it down, I can save you some time: That’s my granduncle.
Richard Chester Warr was the brother of Mary Catherine Warr, who was married to John Edward Ridgley, father of Thomas Francis and John Edward Ridgley Jr. who were both alumni of Brother Martin.
Yep, the Thomas Ridgley who’s name is on the Brother Martin Fine Arts and Athletics Building.
Not sure if Richard Warr was himself an alumnus, but he joined the Army in early 1942 and was assigned to A Co., 1st Battalion, 377th Infantry, 95th Infantry Division. He was captured during their attack on the city of Metz in early November 1944. I’ve enclosed his VA internment record as an image. The serial number should be a full match for the dog tag.
Wow! Now we know the link! The Ridgleys are what I call “BOSH Royalty,” one of the families with a long tradition of supporting the schools and the Institute. There’s a lot of ephemera and photos donated by various members of the family to the archives over the years.
Here’s my theory on how we came into the possession of Warr’s decoration. He was a Private First Class during World War II, and unfortunately died young, at the age of 46. If Warr did not marry, his possessions likely went to his sister, Mary Catherine. So, Mary Catherine Warr marries John Ridgley. Her personal stuff becomes part of the the Ridgley family stuff. Perhaps the Purple Heart ended up in a box of high school stuff.
Fort St. Philip protected New Orleans from attack via the Mississippi River.
source: The Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812
Fort St. Philip during the Battle of New Orleans
By 9am on January 8, 1815, the Battle of New Orleans was all but over. With Lt. General Pakenham and Maj. General Gibbs dead, Maj. General Lambert determines that the army cannot successfully regroup, so he orders a withdrawal from the battlefield in Chalmette. History marks this as the end of the War of 1812. There was one more incident connected to the battle that happened the next day, 9-January. Royal Navy vessels had been detached from Lake Borgne after the capture of American gunboats there on 14-December-1814.
On 30-December-1814, six smaller vessels were ordered detached from the main Lake Borgne force. They sailed back into the Gulf, then entered the Mississippi. These were: Herald, 18, sloop of war, Thistle, 12, brig of war, Pigmy, 10, schooner, and two bomb vessels, Aetna and Volcano. HMS Herald, 38, a frigate, was to lead the force up the river, but was too large to enter the pass. So, the smaller vessels proceeded.
Diversion
The plan was for the force to create a diversion from the main attack in Chalmette. The bomb vessels would fire exploding shells at/over Fort St. Phillip. Once past the fort, they could continue up the river to Chalmette and support Pakenham. The attack unraveled, as Herald ran aground on 5-January, It took the force from 7-January to 9-January to reach the fort. Even though the main army withdrew on 8-January, the flotilla continued. The vessels laid seige to the fort from 9-January to 18-January, with the bomb vessels firing over fifty shells a day. The other vessels were unable to engage the fort directly. The fort had furnaces to heat shot, forcing all of the British vessels to maintain distance. While the mortars did some damage to the fort, it wasn’t enough to subdue its defenses. The British attempted landings for ground attacks, but these were also unsuccessful. The British ceased fire on the fort on the evening of 18-January and left the Mississippi River on 22-January. The flotilla re-joined Vice Admiral Cochrane and his flagship, HMS Tonnant, 80, and pulled back to Mobile Bay.
The British inability to penetrate the Mississippi River made the diversion a failure. In 1862, Flag Officer Farragut of the Union Navy learned from this. His squadron of small ships and bomb vessels were small enough to clear Forts Jackson and St. Phillip, enable the capture of the city.
Photo of the current Brother Martin Naval Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) Color Guard. While these cadets are a much-newer vintage than when I was a cadet, the basics of what these guys learn and the activities they participate in are both similar and important.
There’s a lot of things in the news concerning Naval Aviation and The Naval Special Warfare Development Group( abbreviated as DEVGRU) in recent days that bring me back to my first semester of Naval Orientation at Brother Martin. Chief Warrant Officer 4 (CWO-4) Leroy Adams taught NJROTC I in 1973-74. I’m not sure what Mr. Adams (remind me to tell you the story of how Brother More, SC, always called him “Chief” sometime) did in the Navy before he retired. I’ll have to look that up, because he was great teacher. I want to share two things from Mr. Adams class that stuck with me.
NJROTC I
The first is outlining. I learned outlining the hard way, having received an F on a book report in English 8A (thanks, Brother Buddy). That pretty much kicked my ass and made me realize that a lot of my elementary school foundation wasn’t all that great. Then came baptism-by-fire with respect to outlining, when I competed in Extemporaneous Speaking in 9th grade. Mr. Adams approached teaching Naval Orientation the same way instructors approached training sailors in the fleet. He started with basics. While honor students chafed at having to read the textbook and outline what we read, the exercise worked. That training provided me with a solid foundation as I became an Education major at UNO.
That leads to the second thing I took away from NJROTC I. The course text, an incredibly thick Navy-issue book, included the Uniform Code of Military Justice in its entirety. A lot of us Debate Team kids aspired to be lawyers. It’s why many of us enjoyed cross-examination debate. So, when the day’s lecture wasn’t interesting, I would flip through to the UCMJ and read various sections. Those regs made it clear that joining the military wasn’t a choice that should be made lightly.
UCMJ, JAG, and Good Men
Fast-forward to adulthood. I didn’t join up (the Navy disqualified me because of my poor eyesight), but many of my friends and classmates did. All of them served honorably and did not run afoul of the UCMJ. Dramas like “A Few Good Men” and television shows like “JAG” always took me back to that reading I did in 10th grade. It’s why now, I find the present administrations rhetoric with respect to Captain Mark Kelly, USN (RET) so abhorrent. Now-Senator Kelly works hard to protect men and women in uniform by reminding them of their obligation to refuse unlawful orders. The UCMJ makes it clear that Senator Kelly is correct. Our NJROTC instructors would have agreed.
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!
THANK YOU for coming out to my talk with the Learning Before Lunch group! As I mentioned during the talk, I’ve given this presentation before, so it’s available as a NOLA History Guy Podcast. Enjoy!
I got a call last night, asking if I was available to pinch-hit as a speaker for the Learning Before Lunch (LBL) group on Thursday, 11-December. I’ll be presenting the talk, “When the French Quarter Was Sicilian.” This walk was part of our “Third Thursday Lecture Series” at the Jefferson Parish Library. I’m happy to present it again, particularly because LBL meets at the Earl K. Long Library at my alma mater, University of New Orleans.
Info:
When the French Quarter Was Sicilian
by Edward Branley
for Learning Before Lunch
Thursday, 11-December-2025
Where: The Dougie Hitt Memorial Conference Room in Earl K. Long Library at UNO.
Time: 10am, doors open at 9:30am.
Cost: free for LBL members. Non-members are encouraged to make a $5 donation.
“Little Palermo”
Central Grocery (Infrogmation photo)
In “When the French Quarter Was Sicilian,” Local author Edward Branley explores the part of the Quarter known as “Little Palermo” from the 1890s into the 1930s. From the riverfront to the French Market, up into the neighborhood, Edward talks about produce farmers, market vendors, grocers, bakers, restaurant and tavern owners, organized crime, and a well-known ice cream maker.
We had a great crowd come out to JPL for this talk, and it’s been a popular podcast episode as well. If you weren’t able to come out in October, please join us Thursday.
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