Lower Central Business District - New Orleans, LA - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

"The Lower Central Business District encompasses 239 buildings. The Lower Central Business District occupies a portion of the tract of land which was owned by Don Bertrand Gravier and Madame Marie Gravier in the late 18th century. The Gravier property was subdivided into streets and blocks by the Spanish Royal Surveyor Carlos Trudeau in 1788. The land between Common and Iberville Streets was to remain city property, known as the City Commons, until 1810 when the city surveyor Jacques Tanesse perpared a plan which defined the lcoation of Common, Canal and Iberville Streets. The extraordianary width of Canal Street was due ot the fact that an extension of the Carondelet Canal was to be build down the center of the street, a venture which was never undertaken.

Development of the Lower Central Business District began in the late 18th century, but there are no surviving buildings from that period in the district today. With the entry of Louisiana into the United States in 1812, the flow of Anglo-American immigrants from the rest of the country increased rapidly, with most of these new arrivals moving into the section of the city upriver from the French Quarter. The Lower Central Business District, with its poximity to Canal Street, became the focus of the business and commercial interest of New Orleans, and the overwhelming majority of the buildings built in this section, both before and after the Civil War, were intended for those uses. Improvements in building technology after the Civil War led to the construction of larger and taller commercial buildings, many of which replaced smaller antebellum commercial buildings. The first half of the 20th century saw contined commercial building activity, with the use of stell frame structural systems leading to the erection of the city's first 20+ story office building, erected for some of the larger banks in the city. "

From State of Louisiana.