<GNOCDC> East Carrollton Neighborhood Snapshot

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This information is pre-Katrina.
Although the information on this page is out-of-date, we are continuing to make it available, as it provides insight about this neighborhood pre-Katrina.

Post-Katrina, we will not be making any changes or updates to this page. As a result, you may find outdated information and broken links.

For current data about New Orleans and its neighborhoods, visit our homepage.

East Carrollton Neighborhood Snapshot

Census 2000 Data Tables: People & Household Characteristics, Housing & Housing Costs, Income & Poverty, Transportation, Employment, Educational Attainment, Immigration & Language, Disabilities, Neighborhood Characteristics

In 1719, this area was part of a plantation owned by Le Sieur de Bienville, the founder of New Orleans. By the early 1800s, the land was part of a large sugar plantation owned by the McCarty family. Eventually, it was purchased by the New Orleans Canal and Banking Co. and several private investors who divided the land into plots for development.

The first house was built in 1835 and the area quickly developed into a “suburb” of New Orleans, aided largely by the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad that ferried commuters into New Orleans for work. The town of Carrollton was incorporated by an Act of the legislature in 1845. A commercial area serving Carrollton was concentrated in the East Carrollton neighborhood along Second Street (now Maple Street). Businesses included a blacksmith, a tinsmith, a bakery, doctors, druggists, dentists, a gunsmith and several others.

In 1875, the annexed territory known as East Carrollton provided New Orleanians with the benefit of a rural atmosphere, access to the city and economic advantage. Wealthy families built suburban mansions along St. Charles Avenue in the present East Carrollton neighborhood. By the late nineteenth century, most development in East Carrollton had occurred. It remains stable and no significant land use changes have taken place. It is predominated by single family, two family and multi-family residences. The neighborhood is served by the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line, which descended from the 1835 New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad line.

Streetcar history

Image courtesy New Orleans Public Library (nutrias.org). Permission for reuse required.
A streetcar gingerly traverses a Sewerage and Water Board excavation, ca. early 1960s. [Municipal Government Photograph Collection, S&WB Series]

The New Orleans & Carrollton Line is the oldest street railway line still in operation in the United States. The St. Charles streetcar line in New Orleans and the San Francisco cable cars are the nation's only mobile national monuments.

The streetcar was the focal point of racial tensions in New Orleans for decades. Before the Civil War, white and black people rode in separate cars. When Federal troops occupied New Orleans during the Civil War, Federal soldiers who were black clashed with streetcar conductors when they were not allowed to board the streetcar of their choice. During Reconstruction, racial separation on streetcars was discontinued. But in 1902 Jim Crow laws put separate streetcars back on the tracks.

Eventually the idea was conceived that white and African American people could ride on the same cars as long as they remained in separate sections. Caucasians were given seats in the front and African Americans were relegated to seats in the back. They were separated by a movable “race screen” that said “white only” on one side and “colored only” on the other and was put into two holes on the back of any of the seats. According to the Southern Institute’s teaching materials, “Any white person, even a child, could lift the race screen from its position and place it in a new position further back in the street car and all the black people, including the elderly, had to get up and relocate to a seat behind the race screen.”

Read a 1928 memo from the New Orleans Public Service Inc. Transportation Department to its conductors on “Adjusting Race Screens.”

Jerome Smith, an African American activist tells this story from his childhood:

“I took the sign and pitched it in the floor which was the same thing I had seen my father do. The driver told me to move. I did move, and he said he was going to call the police. I was crying, and this old women, an old black women, told the driver and some of the white people, Please don't call the police. I'm going to take this boy home and see that his grandmother bust his behind. This boy gives too much trouble, and when we got off the bus with this old lady she took me to the back side of Autolec store and she grabbed me and hugged me and kissed me and said she was proud of me.”

Read more about Jerome Smith

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

An interview with Jerome Smith is part of the Tom C Dent Collection at the Amistad Center at Tulane University

New Orleans street cars were desegregated in 1958 by federal court order.

Carrollton Cemetery

New Orleans cemeteries were segregated as well. Carrollton Cemetery in East Carrollton was divided into two sections: colored and white. A quick comparison of these two sections demonstrates that African Americans had smaller plots and much less elaborate fixtures on their graves.


Image from USGenWeb Project Louisiana (rootsweb.com)		Image from USGenWeb Project Louisiana (rootsweb.com)
"White" section of Carrollton Cemetery.		"Colored" section of Carrollon Cemetery.

Generations of the same families are buried in Carrollton Cemetery, and living family members carefully tend the gravesites. Arthur Raymond Smith is one such New Orleanian who has spent decades gathering wispy, eclectic objects and making memorial artwork for the graves of his deceased mother and grandmother.

Read more about Arthur Raymond Smith City of the Deads, pictures, audio and such.

A variety of schools

East Carrollton residents benefit from a variety of schools in their neighborhood:

St. Andrew’s Episcopal School serves children pre-kindergarten to 6th grade.

Lusher Middle School is a New Orleans public magnet school.

Ronald McNair Elementary is a public school where New Orleans Outreach volunteers are actively engaged.

Other Sources

Neighborhood Profiles Project Document prepared by the City of New Orleans Office of Policy Planning and the City Planning Commission. Published December 1980. Study available at the Williams Research Center (non-circulating collection).

Louisiana Fast Facts and Trivia
www.50states.com/facts/louis.htm

National Geographic’s City of the Dead
pulseplanet.nationalgeographic.com/ax/features/0100/0100_index.html

Home Pre Katrina Home Orleans Parish Uptown/ Carrollton District East Carrollton Snapshot

Last modified: October 5, 2002