Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2008 - (Page 45) air and lake breezes. Edgelake was designed with lagoons flowing around tiny islands with trees and flowering shrubs. Neither community materialized beyond a few streets, because of their isolation from the rest of the city. In the 1950s a few subdivisions sprouted east of the Industrial Canal. Plum Orchard began in 1946 along Chef Menteur Highway east of Downman Road. In the 1950s, Pines Village was developed to the north off Downman Road, followed by several other subdivisions between Pines Village and Chef Menteur Highway. Along the north side of Chef Menteur Highway subdivisions such as Castle Manor East and West and Sherwood Forest competed with Jefferson Parish in the late 1950s. In spite of the unreliable Chef Menteur drawbridge over the Industrial Canal, these subdivisions prospered not coincidently because they were convenient to the Gentilly Woods and Gentilly Shopping Centers on the other side of the canal. Everything east of Paris Road, the original French royal grant called THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS Advent of Suburbs COLLECTION A future land-use map (top) published in the Annual Report of the Mayor of New Orleans, 1960-61, shows all of New Orleans East eventually being developed: “This 32,000 acre development will increase by almost one-third the available land area of New Orleans.” The shores along Lake Saint Catherine were slated to become marina-style subdivisions. In 1986, most of this marshland was set aside as the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge. The same annual report also featured photographs of pumps (right and below) draining wetlands for future development. Spring 2008/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 45 Chantilly, was virtually all swamp. Covering 50-square miles, it was the largest property held by one owner in any major American city. In the early 19th century, it was owned by Barthélémy Lafon, the surveyor who subdivided several early New Orleans neighborhoods including Marigny and the Lower Garden District. When he died bankrupt in 1820, some lands along Chef Menteur were sold off, but by the 1850s Antoine Michoud bought and reassembled the original property. It remained in his family until 1910 when John Stuart Walton bought it. Walton’s New Orleans Drainage Company planned to drain and develop the tract, but instead went bankrupt. The creditor, a Chicago bank, foreclosed on the property and in 1923 sold it to Edgar de Montluzin, one of the developers of Gentilly Terrace in THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION
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