Louisiana (New Spain), on March 21, 1788, spanning the south central
Vieux Carré from Burgundy to Chartres Street, almost to the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it ...
front buildings. An additional 212 buildings were destroyed in a
later citywide fire, on December 8, 1794.
History
The
Good Friday
Good Friday is a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary. It is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Great and Holy Friday (also Ho ...
fire began about 1:30 p.m. at the home of Army Treasurer Don Vincente Jose Nuñez, 619 Chartres Street, corner of Wilkinson,
[''French Quarter Fire and Flood'']
History page at FrenchQuarter.com; retrieved 2007. less than a block from
Jackson Square (''Plaza de Armas''). Because the fire started on Good Friday, priests refused to allow church bells to be rung as a fire alarm. Within five hours it had consumed almost the entire city as it was fed by a strong wind from the southeast. The fire destroyed virtually all major buildings in the city (now
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as the , is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans (french: La Nouvelle-Orléans) was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old S ...
), including the church, municipal building, army barracks, armory, and jail.
Colonial Governor Governors and administrators of colonies
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of th ...
Esteban Rodríguez Miró set up tents for the homeless.
[
The fire area stretched between Dauphine Street and the ]Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it ...
and between Conti Street in the south and St. Philip Street in the north. It spared the riverfront buildings including the Customs House, the tobacco warehouses, the Governor's Building, the Royal Hospital, and the Ursuline Convent.[
Colonial officials were to replace the wooden buildings with masonry structures which had courtyards, thick brick walls, arcades, and ]wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" ...
balconies.[ Among the new buildings were the central New Orleans (now Jackson Square) fixtures of St. Louis Cathedral, the Cabildo, and the Presbytere.][ The funds and supervision for the Cathedral and the Cabildo were provided by Don Andres Almonaster y Rojas. The Cabildo burned in the 1794 fire and had to be reconstructed. The Presbytere was built on a somewhat later basis, and Almonaster died before it could be completed.][Arthur, Stanley C. ''Old New Orleans: A History of the Vieux Carré, Its Ancient and Historic Buildings''. Westminster, Maryland: Heritage Books; copyrighted 1936, reprinted 2007.]
Governor Miro's report summarized the suffering:[
After six years of rebuilding, on December 8, 1794, another 212 buildings were destroyed in the Great New Orleans Fire of 1794. Still a colony of Spain, rebuilding continued in Spanish style, and most French-style architecture had disappeared from the city.][
]
Notes
Further reading
* Ermus, Cindy. "Reduced to Ashes: The Good Friday Fire of 1788 in Spanish Colonial New Orleans," ''Louisiana History'' 54 (Summer 2013), 292–331
References
Episodes of Louisiana Life by Henry C. Castellanos - 1905 (includes full text of Miro's report on fire)
{{Coord, 29.9571, N, 90.0643, W, display=title
18th century in New Orleans
1788 disasters
Louisiana (New Spain)