page_title: Algiers, New Orleans
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Algiers, New Orleans / History
caption_attribution_description: "Marine Hospital at New Orleans". Engraving showing old Marine Hospital building on the West Bank of the Mississippi River. Likely shows action during the American Civil War, either being occupied by Confederate forces in 1861 or Union forces the following year. Note boats appear to be filled with troops; flag of Louisiana flying over tower.
context_page_description: Algiers is a section of New Orleans, the only Orleans Parish community located on the West Bank of the Mississippi River. Algiers is known as the 15th Ward, one of the 17 Wards of New Orleans. The neighborhood became the birthplace of Jazz as it was once home to many of the early African American Jazz artists in the early 1900s. This neighborhood is the second oldest in the city and is considered a historic piece of land to the History of New Orleans.
context_section_description: Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, was granted a large tract of land on the west bank of the river opposite New Orleans in 1719. This date is sometimes given as the year of the town's founding, making it one of the oldest neighborhoods in what is now New Orleans, but development as a town as opposed to a private plantation did not actually occur until about 1800. The name is believed to have come from the proximity to the city as compared to France and Algeria. Another theory is that a soldier returning from fighting in Algeria decided it looked just like that country when viewed from a ship.
  A powder magazine was built here for safety reasons and because it stood on higher ground. A slaughterhouse was also established and Algiers went by the name of Slaughterhouse Point for some time.
  
  With the importation of African slaves in the 18th century, this area was used as a holding area until those who survived the sea voyage recovered enough to be dispatched across the river to be sold in the French quarter. Algiers was also a holding area for the Cajuns who survived the Great Upheaval, when the British expelled them from Nova Scotia. The oldest part of Algiers is Algiers Point, across the river from the French Quarter. 
   The Duverjes built their plantation home in Algiers in about 1812. They would become the first family of Algiers and their home would later become the Algiers Courthouse. Algiers Point has been connected with the foot of Canal Street in downtown New Orleans by the Canal Street Ferry since 1827. It is one the oldest continuously operated ferry services in North America. Part of the Battle of New Orleans, in January 1815, was fought on the West Bank in what is now Algiers.  Original earthworks remain, and the site is marked with a historical marker on Patterson Drive in the Aurora neighborhood.
  Much land in Algiers and elsewhere in south Louisiana was owned by John McDonogh, who was one of the world's largest private land owners until his death in 1850. His estate was willed to public schools in Baltimore and New Orleans.  McDonogh's home was located on the river south of Algiers point, but the land has since been washed away. McDonogh's grave is in the McDonogh Cemetery in Gretna. Algiers was incorporated as a city in 1840. Shipbuilding was an important industry here.
  In the 1850s, Algiers became a major railroad center and eastern terminus of the New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western Railroad.  Ferries were utilized for nearly a century to carry passengers, freight, and rail cars across the Mississippi River between the West Bank (including Algiers) and the East Bank (Central Business District of New Orleans).  Later, the railroad yard at Algiers would become the eastern repair shop for the Southern Pacific Railroad.  The SPRR shop employed 4000 and had the capability to build mechanical parts for steamships.
   In April 1862, during the American Civil War, flames arose from the shipyards in Algiers as Confederate officials destroyed property that might benefit the invading Union troops. Historian John D. Winters, in his The Civil War in Louisiana (1963), notes that the New Orleans populace was "'amazed and could scarcely realize the awful fact, and ran hither and thither in speechless astonishment.' . . . Shocked out of their dumb disbelief, many people joined in the destruction. Cotton was rolled from the warehouses, ships loaded with produce were boarded, and fire was set to the lot. Crowds of the city poor broke  open warehouses and carried away baskets, bags, and carts spilling over with rice, bacon, sugar, molasses, corn, and other foods. What they could not carry away they attempted to destroy by dumping in the river, burning, or throwing into the open gutters. A mob broke into the powder and gun factories in the Marine Hospital and carried away rifles and ammunition. The city was a frenzy of disorganized activity."
  In 1870, Algiers was annexed to the city as the 15th Ward, an arrangement which has remained although there have been repeated discussions of secession. Until the latter 1930s, 
caption: Troops head to the old U.S. Marine Hospital building in Algiers
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