Decatur Street — The Old French Quarter Edge

New Orleans was founded in 1718 as a French colonial city along a sharp bend in the Mississippi River. By 1724, the waterfront strip that became Decatur Street was already a working edge — where flatboats landed, cargo unloaded, and the city met the river. The location was strategic from the start. Bienville chose this bend because it sat adjacent to the trading route and portage between the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain via Bayou St. John — a path Native Americans had used for centuries before French explorers arrived. Throughout the 19th century, the port became the largest in the Southern United States, exporting most of the nation's cotton to Western Europe and New England. Decatur Street was the seam where that commerce touched land. Today the street runs from the French Market to Canal Street past Jackson Square, Café Du Monde, and the Jax Brewery building. The brewery opened in 1891 and became the largest independent in the South before closing in 1974; it's now a shopping center. The blocks near Jackson Square still feel like a port town — produce sellers, street musicians, and the smell of chicory coffee mixing with river air. Decatur Street is the oldest commercial corridor in the Louisiana Purchase territory. Walk it end to end, starting at the French Market and heading toward Canal Street. You're tracing the edge where the city has met its river for three hundred years.