On the Levee, just beyond Jackson Square, is the French Market, which often reveals a scene of the greatest picturesqueness and animation. A little farther on, at the foot of Esplanade Avenue, is the United States Branch Mint, a large building in the Ionic style. In Royal Street, four blocks from Canal Street, is the new Court House, a handsome structure of white marble and terra cotta.
In the fine French Quarter the chief promenades are Esplanade Avenue, Rampart Street and Bourbon, Toulouse, Conti and Royal Streets. At the corner of Chartres and Hospital Streets is the Archbishop’s Residence, in the unchanged Ursuline Convent, built in 1730.
Following St. Charles Avenue from Canal Street to the south, is the St. Charles Hotel and the Orpheum and, just beyond, Lafayette Square, around which are grouped the City Hall, the new Post Office, St. Patrick’s Church, the First Presbyterian Church, and the Odd Fellows’ Hall. In the square are a statue of Franklin, by Hiram Powers, a monument to John McDonough, and a statue of Henry Clay. Farther on is Lee Circle, with a monument to General Robert E. Lee. At the corner of Camp Street and Howard Avenue, adjoining Lee Circle, stands the Howard Library, the last work of H. H. Richardson, who was a native of Louisiana. Adjacent are Memorial Hall, a museum of Confederate relics, and the new building of the Public Library. To the southwest, in Carondelet Street, is the Jewish Temple Sinai. The monument to Margaret Haughery, the “Orphans’ Friend,” is said to have been the first statue of a woman erected in the United States.
Tulane Avenue, named in honor of the chief benefactor of Tulane University, and its continuation Common Street, contain the Law Department of Tulane University, the House of Detention, the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception in a singular Moorish style, the Parish Prison and Criminal Courts, the Hôtel Dieu, and the large Charity Hospital, originally established in 1784. The large Cotton Exchange is at the corner of Carondelet and Gravier Streets; the Produce Exchange is in Magazine Street, and the Sugar Exchange is at the foot of Bienville Street. The United States Marine Hospital lies near the river.
St. Charles Avenue, extending in a crescent from Lee Circle past Audubon Park to the river, is lined with oaks and magnolias and contains many old and admirable private residences. Among its public buildings are Christ Church, the New Orleans University, the Academy of the Sacred Heart, the Jewish Orphan Home, and the Harmony Club. At the point where the avenue crosses Audubon Park are the newer buildings of the Tulane University, an important and well-equipped institution. A department of Tulane University is the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College for Women, founded in 1886. A legacy of John McDonough has built and equipped thirty handsome school houses in different parts of the city.
The City Park, on the Metairie Ridge, is one hundred and fifty acres in extent. The Audubon Park, in which the Great Exhibition of 1884-1885 was held, and which now holds the “Sugar Experimental Station” of the State of Louisiana, is a long segment extending back from the river, being the ground in which the sugar cane was first grown in this state. Both parks contain fine live-oaks.
New Orleans is the largest cotton market in the world except Liverpool, handling annually two [607] million bales. The manufacturing products include machinery, cotton goods, boots and shoes, and amount in a year to sixty million dollars. As the outlet of the Mississippi Valley it commands a large export trade.
The site of New Orleans was first visited in 1699 by Bienville, who in 1718 laid the foundations of the city, and in 1726 made it the capital. In 1763 it was ceded to Spain by France, with the rest of Louisiana; but when in 1765 the Spanish governor attempted to take possession, he was driven out, and the people established a government of their own till 1769, when the Spaniards occupied it. It was ceded to France in 1802, and transferred to the United States a few days later. Incorporated as a city in 1804, it was divided in 1836-1852 into three separate municipalities, in consequence of the jealousies between the Creoles and the Americans. Other outstanding events have been the defeat of the British by Andrew Jackson in 1815; the capture in 1862 by the Federal fleet; serious political troubles with fighting in 1874 and 1877; and the lynching in 1891 of eleven Italian maffiosi. In 1880 the capital of Louisiana was removed from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.
Newport, R. I. [The “City of Mansions”; named in honor of the English admiral Christopher Newport (under James I.).]
It was, until 1900, one of the capitals of Rhode Island, and lies on the west shore of the island, in Narragansett Bay, five miles from the ocean, and sixty-nine miles by railroad southwest of Boston. It has a deep and excellent harbor, defended by Fort Adams.