Where now stands the great St. Charles Hotel,
there was an unsightly and disgusting pond of fetid water, and the
locations now occupied by the City Hotel and the St. James were
cattle-pens. There was not a wharf in the entire length of the city,
and the consequence was an enormous tax levied upon produce, in the
shape of drayage and repairs of injuries to packages, from the want of
these prime necessities.
The navigation of the Bayou St. John commanded for the lower portion
of the city the commerce crossing the lake, and to monopolize the
profits of travel, a railroad was proposed from the lake to the river,
and speedily completed. The people of the Faubourg, to counteract as
much as possible these advantages, constructed a canal from the city
to the lake, which was to enter the city, or Faubourg St. Mary, at the
foot of Julia Street, one of the broadest and best streets in that
quarter of the city. This was of sufficient capacity for schooners and
steamboats of two hundred tons burden. When this was completed, with
great difficulty the authorities were prevailed upon to pave Julia
Street; still the greatly increasing demands of commerce were
neglected, and while by these refusals the population of the city
proper was doing all it could to force down to the city this
increasing trade, they neglected to do anything there for its
accommodation.
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