The Great New Orleans Fire (1794) was a major fire that destroyed 212 structures in New Orleans, Louisiana on December 8, 1794, in the area now known as the French Quarter from Burgundy to Chartres Street, adjacent to the Mississippi River. [1] [2] On March 12, 1788, just 6 years prior, 856 buildings had been destroyed in the First Great New Orleans Fire [1] .
The fire started on December 8, 1794, and stretched across 212 buildings, including the royal jail, [1] though it stopped short of the riverfront buildings facing the Mississippi River. Among the buildings spared were the Customs House, the tobacco warehouses, the Governor's Building, the Royal Hospital, and the Ursulines Convent. Despite widespread fire damage, the new St. Louis Cathedral was not destroyed and was dedicated just two weeks later, on December 23, 1794.
In the aftermath, the schooner Nuestra Señora del Cármen was used as a temporary jail during the period December 10, 1794 to February 26, 1795. The ship's owner, Don Prospero Ferrayolo, received rental payments for use of the ship, replacing the royal jail destroyed during the fire. [2]
Because New Orleans was at the time a colony of Spain, rebuilding after both fires continued in Spanish style, and consequently most French architecture was eliminated from the French Quarter. The Spanish occupiers replaced the wooden buildings with structures with courtyards, thick brick walls, arcades, and wrought iron balconies. [1] Among the new buildings constructed were the signature New Orleans buildings of St. Louis Cathedral (1794), the Cabildo (1799), and the Presbytere (1797), all designed by Gilberto Guillemard. [2]
In 1795, Don Andrés Almonaster y Rojas agreed to pay for construction of the building now known as the Cabildo. It replaced an earlier structure that had been destroyed by the fire. Almonaster had already commissioned Gilberto Guillemard to design the new cathedral and Presbytere.
The French Quarter, also known as the Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the Vieux Carré, a central square. The district is more commonly called the French Quarter today, or simply "The Quarter", related to changes in the city with American immigration after the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Most of the extant historic buildings were constructed either in the late 18th century, during the city's period of Spanish rule, or were built during the first half of the 19th century, after U.S. purchase and statehood.
Esteban Rodríguez Miró y Sabater, KOS, also known as Esteban Miro and Estevan Miro, was a Spanish army officer and governor of the Spanish American provinces of Louisiana and Florida.
The history of New Orleans, Louisiana, traces the city's development from its founding by the French in 1718 through its period of Spanish control, then briefly back to French rule before being acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. During the War of 1812, the last major battle was the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Throughout the 19th century, New Orleans was the largest port in the Southern United States, exporting most of the nation's cotton output and other products to Western Europe and New England. With it being the largest city in the South at the start of the Civil War (1861–1865), it was an early target for capture by Union forces. With its rich and unique cultural and architectural heritage, New Orleans remains a major destination for live music, tourism, conventions, and sporting events and annual Mardi Gras celebrations. After the significant destruction and loss of life resulting from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the city would bounce back and rebuild in the ensuing years.
The Cathedral-Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France, also called St. Louis Cathedral, is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans and is the oldest cathedral in continuous use in the United States. It is dedicated to Saint Louis, also known as King Louis IX of France. The first church on the site was built in 1718; the third, under the Spanish rule, built in 1789, was raised to cathedral rank in 1793. The second St. Louis Cathedral was burned during the great fire of 1788 and was expanded and largely rebuilt and completed in the 1850s, with little of the 1789 structure remaining.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans is an ecclesiastical division of the Roman Catholic Church spanning Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, and Washington civil parishes of southeastern Louisiana. It is the second to the Archdiocese of Baltimore in age among the present dioceses in the United States, having been elevated to the rank of diocese on April 25, 1793, during Spanish colonial rule.
DonAndrés Almonaster y Roxas de Estrada was a Spanish civil servant and philanthropist of New Orleans, today chiefly remembered for his numerous charitable benefactions made to the city of New Orleans.
The Cabildo was the seat of Spanish colonial city hall of New Orleans, Louisiana, and is now the Louisiana State Museum Cabildo. It is located along Jackson Square, adjacent to St. Louis Cathedral.
The Louisiana State Museum (LSM), founded in New Orleans in 1906, is a statewide system of National Historic Landmarks and modern structures across Louisiana, housing thousands of artifacts and works of art reflecting Louisiana's legacy of historic events and cultural diversity.
The Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo, also known as the Royal Presidio Chapel, is a Roman Catholic cathedral located in Monterey, California, United States. The cathedral is the oldest continuously operating parish and the oldest stone building in California. It was built in 1791-94 making it the oldest serving cathedral in the United States, along with St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the only existing presidio chapel in California and the only existing building in the original Monterey Presidio.
Jackson Square, formerly the Place d'Armes (French) or Plaza de Armas (Spanish), is a historic park in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960, for its central role in the city's history, and as the site where in 1803 Louisiana was made United States territory pursuant to the Louisiana Purchase. In 2012 the American Planning Association designated Jackson Square as one of the Great Public Spaces in the United States.
Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent was a French merchant and military officer who played a major role in the development of French and Spanish Louisiana.
The Great New Orleans Fire (1788) was a fire that destroyed 856 of the 1,100 structures in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 21, 1788, spanning the south central Vieux Carré from Burgundy to Chartres Street, almost to the Mississippi River front buildings. An additional 212 buildings were destroyed in a later citywide fire, on December 8, 1794.
Spanish Louisiana was a governorate and administrative district of the Viceroyalty of New Spain from 1762 to 1801 that consisted of a vast territory in the center of North America encompassing the western basin of the Mississippi River plus New Orleans. The area had originally been claimed and controlled by France, which had named it La Louisiane in honor of King Louis XIV in 1682. Spain secretly acquired the territory from France near the end of the Seven Years' War by the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762). The actual transfer of authority was a slow process, and after Spain finally attempted to fully replace French authorities in New Orleans in 1767, French residents staged an uprising which the new Spanish colonial governor did not suppress until 1769. Spain also took possession of the trading post of St. Louis and all of Upper Louisiana in the late 1760s, though there was little Spanish presence in the wide expanses of what they called the "Illinois Country".
The Presbytère is an architecturally important building in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. It stands facing Jackson Square, adjacent to the St. Louis Cathedral. Built in 1813 as a matching structure for the Cabildo, which flanks the cathedral on the other side, it is one of the nation's best examples of formal colonial Spanish architecture. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970, and is now a property of the Louisiana State Museum.
The buildings and architecture of New Orleans are reflective of its history and multicultural heritage, from Creole cottages to historic mansions on St. Charles Avenue, from the balconies of the French Quarter to an Egyptian Revival U.S. Customs building and a rare example of a Moorish revival church.
Micaela Leonarda Antonia de Almonester Rojas y de la Ronde, Baroness de Pontalba was a wealthy New Orleans-born Creole aristocrat, businesswoman, and real estate designer and developer, who endures as one of the most recalled and dynamic personalities in the city's history, though she lived most of her life in Paris.
The Louisiana State Museum's 1850 House is an antebellum row house furnished to represent life in mid-nineteenth-century New Orleans. It is located at 523 St. Ann Street on Jackson Square in the French Quarter.
Events from the year 1788 in the United States.
William Woodward was a U.S. artist and educator, best known for his impressionist paintings of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of the United States.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.