Jax Brewery — From Beer to Shopping on the River

The Jackson Brewing Company opened in 1891 on Decatur Street and made Jax beer until 1974. By then, New Orleans had been the largest port in the Southern United States for over a century — exporting cotton and farm products to Western Europe and New England through the 19th century — and the brewery built on that same riverfront where ships once loaded holds. When production stopped, the building became a shopping complex, one of the city's first adaptive-reuse conversions. The brewery's name still marks the façade. The beer itself is gone. Go for the rooftop. The Mississippi River views are the actual reason to walk through the retail floors — the same bend in the river that made this site matter in 1718, when the French chose high ground along the flood-prone Mississippi for their colonial city. The river hasn't moved. The view still explains why the city is here.