In 1896, the Daughters of Charity boarded a barge on the Mississippi River at Canal Street heading to Carville, Louisiana, about 70 miles upriver from New Orleans. Carville was the new site of the Louisiana Leper Home, where the Sisters performed…

Today, nothing identifies the location in the Lower Ninth Ward where Mother Catherine Seals' “Temple of the Innocent Blood” once stood. This was true even before Hurricane Katrina devastated the area in 2005 when the nondescript block where it was…

Established in 1875, St. Roch Cemetery lies just north of the Faubourg Marigny in the St. Roch neighborhood. The founder of St. Roch Cemetery was Father Peter Leonhard Thevis, pastor at Holy Trinity Church located closer to the Mississippi River…

Loyola University formed WWL in 1922 for the simple purpose of raising funds. Loyola needed to raise $1.5 million in order to construct six new campus buildings. The call letters, WWL, had no specific meaning to Loyola University, as they were…

“One of the handsomest structures in the city will be the new building of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association,” [1] said an article from the New Orleans States when the Athenaeum opened in 1896. With various Jewish families from the New Orleans area…

Almost 300 years ago, in 1727, the Ursuline nuns arrived in New Orleans at the invitation of Governor Bienville. While awaiting the completion of their convent in 1734, the Ursuline nuns established a school and an orphanage. The Ursuline Order…

Hamilton Square was renamed Palmer Park as a “testimony to the honor of the late B. M. Palmer” through a city ordinance on July 1902. Benjamin Morgan Palmer was pastor of New Orleans First Presbyterian Church. Palmer’s 1860 Thanksgiving sermon is…

Founded in 1841 by free people of color, St. Augustine is the oldest African-American parish in the United States. Civil Rights activists Homer Plessy and A.P. Tureaud were parishioners of St. Augustine, as were jazz musician Sidney Bechet and Mardi…

Facing Jackson Square and the Mississippi River, the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, is the oldest Catholic cathedral in continual use in the United States. With its three steeples, St. Louis Cathedral, as it is commonly known, is…

The Upstairs Lounge had served as the home of a religious denomination, the Metropolitan Community Church; however, no church would allow a prayer service for those who died, except for the pastor of St. George’s Episcopal Church. Father Bill…

Originally located on the corner of Cambronne and Freret Streets, Mater Dolorosa School was founded in 1872 in order to provide quality education to the children of the Mater Dolorosa congregation. Father Prim had reunited the French and German…

The Waldo Burton Memorial Home was a boy's home operated by the Society for the Relief of Destitute Orphan Boys (a Presbyterian organization dating to 1824). The building itself was built and donated by Mr. and Mrs. William Lafayette Burton in…

The chapel held a particular spot in Mrs. Newcomb's heart, as she saw it as symbolic of her daughter, Sophie. Mrs. Newcomb ordered Tiffany windows for this building, as well as a specially built organ and a bronze memorial tablet for Harriott…

Cabrini High School was named for Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Mother Cabrini was born in Italy and traveled to New York to provide catechism and general education to Italian immigrants and…

In his book, "A Brief History of H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College 1887-1919: A Personal Reminiscence," President Dixon mentioned that the move to the Broadway campus was a good thing, as the new buildings were better adapted for college…

During WWII, Camp Leroy Johnson was used along with the New Orleans Airport by the Army and Airforce Bomber Squadron for training. Signal and Quartermaster units were trained on the post, which housed a Transportation Corps Officer Candidate School…