The Good Friday Fire — How New Orleans Became Spanish

The French founded New Orleans in 1718. By 1788, most of it was gone. On the afternoon of Good Friday, March 21, 1788, fire broke out at the home of Army Treasurer Don Vincente Jose Nuñez at 619 Chartres Street, less than a block from what is now Jackson Square. Because it started on Good Friday, priests refused to allow church bells to be rung as a fire alarm. A strong wind from the southeast fed the flames. Within five hours, 856 of the city's 1,100 structures had burned—more than three in every four buildings. The fire consumed virtually all major buildings: the church, the municipal building, the army barracks, the armory, and the jail. Governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró set up tents for the homeless. His report captured what remained: "The obscurity of the night coming on threw its mantle for a while over the saddening spectacle; but more horrible still was the sight, when day began to dawn, of entire families pouring forth into the public highways, yielding to their lamentations and despair, who, but a few hours before, had been basking in the enjoyment of more than the ordinary comforts of life." The fire area stretched between Dauphine Street and the Mississippi River, between Conti Street and St. Philip Street. It spared the riverfront buildings: the Customs House, the tobacco warehouses, the Governor's Building, the Royal Hospital, and the Ursuline Convent. Spain rebuilt it. Colonial officials replaced wooden buildings with masonry structures featuring courtyards, thick brick walls, arcades, and wrought iron balconies. Don Andres Almonaster y Rojas provided funds and supervision for the new St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo. The Cabildo burned in a second citywide fire on December 8, 1794, which destroyed an additional 212 buildings, and had to be reconstructed. The Presbytere was built on a somewhat later basis; Almonaster died before it could be completed. Still a colony of Spain, rebuilding continued in Spanish style, and most French-style architecture disappeared from the city. The neighborhood every visitor calls the French Quarter is a Spanish city. The fires made it so.