Thus from just below First Street to just above Ninth Street (now Harmony) and from the river back to St. George Street (now La Salle) this expanse of property, the original Faubourg Livaudais, was divided into squares and placed on the market, with one exception. Madame Livaudais retained the tract with her house on it, including her garden.
This is why the blocks between Washington Avenue and Sixth Street from the river to La Salle Street are wider than the other blocks. They follow the width of Mme. Livaudais’ house and grounds.
The house itself was never completed. For brief periods, members of the Livaudais family appear to have lived in the habitable portions. It was once used as a public ballroom, though which sections of it were adaptable for that purpose have never been specified. Itinerant wayfarers settled within its shambles as years passed. In 1861 it was briefly converted into a plaster factory when that commodity became scarce because of the Federal blockade. Two destitute, frail old crones next made it their home. These female hermits, it was said, refused all offerings of food or money. Little wonder that the ruin became “The Haunted House of Lafayette”, until it was finally torn down in 1863.
The Livaudais plantation became a valuable part of Lafayette City at its incorporation with the Faubourgs of Nuns and Lafayette in 1833. It supplied, besides more river frontage, fine residential sites, covered with the rich silt from the Macarty crevasse. It would indeed grow anything, but particularly, flowers in profusion.
Omnibus line using double-decker vehicles was the first means of transportation between New Orleans, Lafayette, via Tchoupitoulas.
The fragrance and the variety of floral abundance evoked the paeans of poet and author. It was natural that some of the wealthy “American” families and later even a few Creoles should seek these new sites for their great homes. An omnibus from New Orleans ran regularly out Tchoupitoulas. The New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad, chartered by the same session of the legislature which incorporated Lafayette, began regular service from the heart of the growing business and financial section in New Orleans proper up Nayades Street (now St. Charles Avenue) right through this verdant section on its way upriver to the town of Carrollton.
In 1834 a spur route turned off Nayades and came out Jackson Street to the river, along Lafayette City’s most elegant thoroughfare. The wealthy citizens of New Orleans and the successful merchants of Lafayette City began to spread out in the section which quickly became known as the Garden District. Although many fine homes were built on the outer fringes of the quadrangle formed by Jackson and Louisiana Avenues and Magazine Street and St. Charles Avenue, it is generally agreed today that the Garden District lies within these boundaries. However, in the 1850’s the term was not so strictly applied and Josephine and Apollo (Carondelet) Streets were included.
First steam train of New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad on Nayades, now St. Charles Avenue, gave access to Garden District.