Canal Street Under French and Spanish Rule (1718-1803)

Canal Street Under French and Spanish Rule (1718-1803). . Since the founding of New Orleans by Bienville in 1718, Canal Street has been an integral part of our city. The up river limits of the old city, defined by earth and store ramparts, ran along the present route of Canal Street. A cleared area directly in front of these fortifications were known as the common ground during the Spanish colonial period. This common ground actually became Canal Street. The other city limits set by Rampart Street, Esplanade Avenue, as we know them today, and the Mississippi River complete the square known as the Vieux Carre. , , Canal Street derived it's name in the French colonial period from plans made to connect the river to Lake Pontchartrain via a navigatable canal in the center of this common ground. Although these plans were never carried out, the name remained. It was not until Spanish rule, 1763, that this area became designated as a public thoroughfare and became commonly known as Canal Street. , , The common ground also formed the lower limit to Bienville's land grant plantation, a portion of which he sold to the Jesuits in 1726. This twenty arrent tract directly above the common ground became the first sugar plantation in Louisiana. Following the defeat of the French in the French and Indian War, the land was confiscated from the Jesuits and auctioned to a Spanish citizen. Shortly after, the great fire of 1788 destroyed most of the original city and the plantation was subdivided to allow the city further expansion up river. This became the earliest suburb of New Orleans, to become known as the Faubourg St. Mary., The streets and blocks of this earliest expansion, laid out in 1788, still exist, and now comprise our Central Business District. Canal street then became the physical and cultural division between the old and the new, or as it later developed, between the French and American sectors of our city., This 800 block of canal street was developed under the auspices of the Core Area Development District in cooperation with the City of New Orleans and the Canal Street business community as a demonstration "Show Me" block.