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INTRODUCTION

Jefferson Parish, incorporated in 1825 (a mere eighteen years after New Orleans was established), was named to honor the living former president Thomas Jefferson for his work in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase. However, the parish’s founders had originally proposed to name it Tchoupitoulas Parish.

The first record of the land that would become Metairie is the Concession of 1720, also called the Chapitoulas Concession, named for the river people who lived along a bayou on a high natural ridge that cut through cypress swamps from Kenner to Bayou St. John. Through the years, the name Chapitoulas evolved into Tchoupitolas. The bayou (originally named Tchoupitoulas, then Bayou Metairie) would slowly disappear—European settlers dammed it at the river in order to drain land for farming. The ridge would become the bed of Metairie Road.

The oldest entities lost from Metairie’s history are the former habitations of Native Americans along the ridge and near Lake Pontchartrain. A series of bayous once flowed from the lake: Indian Bayou, Bayou Labarre, Bayou Laurier/Loria/Loriet, Double Bayou and another named Bayou Tchoupitoulas (possibly the remains of the original). The native people used these waterways and settled near them, constructing mounds and middens (locals called these the Indian Mounds) with clams from the lake.

Early European property holdings ran from the lake to the river, and what could be seen from the few roads was a minuscule portion of the land possessed. Free persons of color owned large tracts at the outset of Metairie’s development. These people included the following: Angélique Aury, who obtained property from Pierre Langliche (also a free person of color), who had acquired it on October 1, 1787, from Spanish colonial notary and real estate developer Andres Almonester y Roxas; Marie Joseph and Jean Louis Beaulieu, who acquired adjacent land from Langliche on March 14, 1794; and George and Jean L’Esprit, who had property holdings before 1832; the three Hazeur brothers, who established a plantation on both sides of the Seventeenth Street Canal. (Sylvain and Jean Baptiste Hazeur sold their property on January 15, 1870; their brother T.H. sold his adjoining land on April 13, 1878.)

In the 1850s, trappers and fishermen began settling in the section of Metairie known as Bucktown. By the early 1900s, Metairie had two public schools and two churches. The addition of a streetcar on Metairie Road prompted housing and business developments. In the 1920s, four pumping stations began draining the swamps and marshland. Gambling flourished in the 1920s and ’30s, and more land was subdivided for new housing.

The opening of Airline Highway to New Orleans in 1940 created a market for new businesses and housing, but Metairie remained largely rural with many dairies. After Veterans Highway was completed in the 1950s, Metairie began to boom. Lakeside and Clearview shopping centers opened in the 1960s, as did new drive-in restaurants and theaters, bowling alleys, movie houses and much more. The I-10 carved a path though the community, displacing many homeowners and leaving motels and businesses along Airline Highway off the beaten path. By the end of the 1960s, the ancient Indian Mounds were bulldozed, but Fat City was coming alive.

The 1970s brought change when most of the drive-in restaurants shut down (some replaced by fast-food chain outlets), two theater venues closed, a bowling alley was turned into a nightclub and Metairie Road’s krewes of Zeus and Helois changed their routes to ride along Vets.

Gone in the 1980s were Metairie Hospital, three more movie outlets, Beulah Ledner’s beloved doberge cakes on Metairie Road, Sclafani’s landmark restaurant on Causeway, the Pelican Bowl and the many Pik-A-Pak convenience stores. Fat City was losing its luster.

Food lovers lamented the closing of the House of Lee, Borden’s creamery and Schwegmann’s stores in the 1990s. Moviegoers felt the loss of Lakeside Theatre, Galleria 8 and Lakeside Cinema. Paradise Lanes, Metairie Hardware and the many Time-Saver stores closed. And the iconic rotating Walker-Roemer cow was removed from her perch along the interstate.

After the turn of the twenty-first century, lost were Bucktown’s Fresh Hardware and the community’s homes, restaurants and boats along the Seventeenth Street Canal. Kenner Bowl and Tony Angelllo’s closed. And Al Copeland‘s Christmas lights went out.

This book is arranged chronologically, not by years founded but by dates of loss. It is not a comprehensive history but a glimpse of places fondly remembered. There are likely mistakes here, but every effort was made to present information as accurately as possible.

The following shortened forms are used throughout the book: Airline (Airline Highway/Drive), Causeway (Causeway Boulevard), Clearview (Clearview Parkway), GNO (Greater New Orleans Area), S&WB (New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board), USACE (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) and Vets (Veterans Memorial Highway/Boulevard). The following abbreviations are used in image captions: AC (author’s collection), JPYR (Jefferson Parish Yearly Review), LDL (Louisiana Digital Library), LOC (Library of Congress) and TP (Times-Picayune newspaper).

1

EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Metairie Road area and Bucktown were primarily the only inhabited areas in Metairie. An 1899 survey tells us that there were eighty buildings along Metairie Road from the Seventeenth Street Canal to Causeway. Small farms and dairies occupied most of Metairie’s dry land.

In 1908, the Bonnabel School in Bucktown replaced an older public school. In 1909, the Metairie Ridge School opened near what is now Haynes Academy and St. Catherine’s Chapel was built in the woods at Labarre Road near Metairie Road—both still unpaved, as was Shrewsbury Road.

The debut of a streetcar on Metairie Road and the construction of St. Louis Church in Bucktown occurred in 1915. By 1917, some sections of Metairie Road were only twenty feet wide, despite the fact that, aside from River Road, it was the only route between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. A wooden bridge across the Seventeenth Street Canal allowed truck farmers to bring goods to market in New Orleans. At this time, Metairie Road was a segment of the Jefferson Highway, which ran from New Orleans to Winnepeg, Canada. (What we now know as Jefferson Highway did not open until 1928.)

A November 1, 1924 Times-Picayune advertisement for the new Country Club Gardens development described Metairie Road as the ONLY OUTLET leading from the city to the WHOLE of NORTH AMERICA. On April 25, 1925, the Cedar telephone exchange office opened at 2728 Metairie Road at Gruner (a part of the building still exists).

In 1927, four pumps were online at canals to drain all of Metairie’s swamps and marshes. That same year, the City of Metairie was incorporated and Louisiana Power and Light brought electrical service to Bucktown. The Jefferson Parish Police Jury opened the first section of Airline Highway, from Williams Boulevard to Shrewsbury Road, where it then continued along Metairie Road to the city. Airline Highway south of Metairie Road was not completed until 1928.

In the 1920s and ’30s, gambling flourished in Jefferson Parish. Metairie Road was the home of some of the finest of these venues to be found anywhere.

Almost all of this is history now, with the exception of the pumps, which continue to keep Metairie land dry (most of the time).

RIDGEWAY PARK (1914)

In 1914, Urban Farms sites with city advantages went on sale by the Vivian Land Company at 60 Ridgeway Park. The sites measured one hundred by two hundred feet. Early farms here included A.B Hagen’s Squab Farm, Rault’s White Orpington Chicken Farm and Hours’ Registered Jersey Stock Farm. Vivian Street, off Metairie Road, now marks the entrance to this development, now filled with homes on much smaller lots.

DAIRIES (EARLY 1900S–1920S)

On Metairie Road in 1910, John Bordes produced milk, cream and cream cheese. He lived at 124 Hyacinthe, near the pumping station. He continued in operation until at least 1943. Frank Bordes’s dairy was also near the pumping station in 1912, at 503 Lake Avenue. He grazed his cows on the Seventeenth Street Canal levee.

On Labarre Road in the 1910s were the dairies of the Babin family and P.L. Palmsano. Schroeder’s dairy began here around 1918. In 1919, J.F. Munsch was selling his cows and equipment—he was retiring from dairy farming to begin truck farming. Leontine and John Ernst started out in the 1920s; by the 1930s, John Ernst’s dairy was at 3620 Airline. The Seivers family operated a dairy on Labarre in the 1920s at what would later be the Schwegmann’s location.

On Metairie Road in 1918 were A.N. Rohli and S. Pailet, and in the 1920s, C. Rolling, Felix Bertucci and Louis Bertucci. By 1925, Louis was retiring and selling his property, cows, equipment and route. John A. Hummel operated two blocks west of the Frisco track across from the Thompson dairy. Hummel was selling his thirty-five cows, horses, bottles and more at an auction on August 16, 1923, in order to return to his prior occupation of contracting.

EARLY METAIRIE SUBDIVISIONS (1923)

The $70,000 public school under construction would become Metairie High. It replaced Metairie Ridge School, which opened in 1909. Today, it is Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies.

In 1908, Peter Stifft bought, for $20,000, the property that would become Crestmont Park. In 1923, he sold it for $100,000 to Guaranty Investment Company, which divided it into Glenwood, Hollywood, Rosewood and Ridgewood Drives. TP.

The tracts labeled Beverly Knoll, Beverly Knoll Annex and Dominican College of Languages was purchased by the Archdiocese of New Orleans around 1919 for about $42,000. In March 1920, Archbishop John William Shaw announced plans for a Grand Seminary to be constructed there. However, in May 1921, Shaw announced that the property was not large enough for this purpose. Notre Dame Seminary was built instead on Carrollton Avenue. A part of the Metairie property was sold on June 3, 1922, for $65,000. It became Beverly Knoll and Beverly Knoll Annex. The remainder was sold on November 9, 1925, for $141,000 to become Livingston Place.

Metairie Club Gardens, labeled as Entrance to the Golf Links and Residential Park, was in the earliest stages of development. Formerly a part of the thirty-four-acre Ricks tract (384 feet on Metairie Road by 4,000 feet deep to the links), half of it was sold in 1926 to Service Realty/Alberto Vales. The other half was sold in 1928 to Charles Beresford Fox for $225,000. Plans called for a 100-foot-wide boulevard through the center with a beautiful neutral ground. The development would be named Farnham Place, which opened to the public on Sunday, April 28, 1929.

The Blue Line Streetcar, an extension of the New Orleans Napoleon Avenue line, ran along the lakeside of Metairie Road. The Cottam property did not open for development until 1946.

THE CITY OF METAIRIE RIDGE (1927–1928)

Some Metairie residents lobbied to remove gambling venues from their new upscale neighborhoods. Charles P. Aicklen, co-owner of Borden-Aicklen Auto Supply Company, was selected as chairman of the anti-gambling Metropolitan Municipal League, which circulated a petition for incorporation as a town disassociated from Jefferson Parish officials, who flagrantly turned a blind eye to violations of gaming and liquor laws.

The boundaries of the new town would be Shrewsbury Road, the Illinois Central Railroad tracks, the southern terminus of the Bonnabel Canal and the Orleans Parish line. This would include the Beverly Gardens, Metairie Inn, Victory Inn and Tranchina Night Club gambling houses as well as the Metairie Kennel Club and the De Limon Park greyhound tracks—all located on Metairie Road. These establishments contributed the vast majority of taxes collected in the area. Incorporation as a town would allow more tax revenue for municipal improvements, but the prospect was a double-edged sword, with pro- and anti-gambling interests.

On June 15, 1927, Governor Oramel H. Simpson declared the incorporation of the City of Metairie Ridge. It would be headed by Aicklen as mayor, W.J. Dwyer as marshal, F.W. Bogel as clerk and E. Howard McCaleb as city attorney. Aicklen