History of New Orleans - 20th Century

20th Century

In the early part of the 20th century the Francophone character of the city was still much in evidence, with one 1902 report describing "one-fourth of the population of the city speaks French in ordinary daily intercourse, while another two-fourths is able to understand the language perfectly."

In 1905, Yellow Fever was reported in the city, which had suffered under repeated epidemics of the disease in the previous century. As the role of mosquitoes in spreading the disease was newly understood, the city embarked on a massive campaign to drain, screen, or oil all cisterns and standing water (breeding ground for mosquitoes) in the city and educate the public on their vital role in preventing mosquitoes. The effort was a success and the disease was stopped before reaching epidemic proportions. President Theodore Roosevelt visited the city to demonstrate the safety of New Orleans. The city has had no cases of Yellow Fever since.

In 1909, the New Orleans Mint ceased coinage, with active coining equipment shipped to Philadelphia.

New Orleans was hit by major storms in the 1909 Atlantic hurricane season and again in the 1915 Atlantic hurricane season.

In 1917 the Department of the Navy ordered the Storyville District closed, over the opposition of Mayor Martin Behrman.

In 1923 the Industrial Canal opened, providing a direct shipping link between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

In the 1920s an effort to "modernize" the look of the city removed the old cast-iron balconies from Canal Street, the city's commercial hub. In the 1960s another "modernization" effort replaced the Canal Streetcar Line with buses. Both of these moves came to be regarded as mistakes long after the fact, and the streetcars returned to a portion of Canal Street at the end of the 1990s, and construction to restore the entire line was completed in April 2004.

The city's river levees narrowly escaped being topped in the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

In 1927 a project was begun to fill in the shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain and create levees along the lake side of the city. Previously areas along the lakefront like Milneburg were built up on stilts, often over water of the constantly shifting shallow shores of the Lake.

There have often been tensions between the city, with its desire to run its own affairs, and the government of the State of Louisiana wishing to control the city. Perhaps the situation was never worse than in the early 1930s between Louisiana Gov. Huey P. Long and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley, when armed city police and state troopers faced off at the Orleans Parish line and armed conflict was only narrowly avoided.

During World War II, New Orleans was the site of the development and construction of Higgins boats under the direction of Andrew Higgins. General Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed these landing craft vital to the Allied victory in the war.

The suburbs saw great growth in the second half of the 20th century, and it was only in the post-World War II period that a truly metropolitan New Orleans comprising the New Orleans center city and surrounding suburbs developed. The largest suburb today is Metairie, an unincorporated subdivision of Jefferson Parish that borders New Orleans to the west. In a somewhat different postwar developmental pattern than that experienced by other older American cities, New Orleans' center city population grew for the first two decades after the war. This was due to the city's ability to accommodate large amounts of new, suburban-style development within the existing city limits, in such neighborhoods as Lakeview, Gentilly, Algiers and New Orleans East. Unlike some other municipalities, notably many in Texas, New Orleans is unable to annex adjacent suburban development.

Mayor DeLesseps "Chep" Morrison was elected as a reform candidate in 1946. He served as mayor of New Orleans until 1961, shaping the city's post-World War II trajectory. His energetic administration accomplished much and received considerable national acclaim. By the end of his mayoralty, however, his political fortunes were dwindling, and he failed to effectively respond to the growing Civil Rights movement.

The 1947 Fort Lauderdale Hurricane hit the city in September 1947. The levees & pumping system succeeded in protecting the city proper from major flooding, but many areas of the new suburbs in Jefferson Parish were deluged, and Moisant Airport was shut down under 2 feet (0.61 m) of water.

In January 1961 a meeting of the city's white business leaders publicly endorsed desegregation of the city's public schools. That same year Victor H. Schiro became the city's first mayor of Italian-American ancestry.

In 1965 the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal ("MR GO", pronounced mister go) was completed, connecting the Intracoastal Waterway with the Gulf of Mexico. The Canal was expected to be an economic boon that would eventually lead to the replacement of the Mississippi Riverfront as the metro area's main commercial harbor. "MR GO" failed to live up to commercial expectations, and from its early days it was blamed for freshwater marsh-killing saltwater intrusion and coastal erosion, increasing the area's risk of hurricane storm surge.

In September 1965 the city was hit by Hurricane Betsy. Windows blew out of television station WWL while it was broadcasting. In an effort to prevent panic, mayor Vic Schiro memorably told TV and radio audiences "Don't believe any false rumors, unless you hear them from me." A breach in the Industrial Canal produced catastrophic flooding of the city's Lower 9th Ward as well as the neighboring towns of Arabi and Chalmette in St. Bernard parish. President Lyndon Johnson quickly flew to the city to promise federal aid.

In 1978, City Councilman Ernest N. Morial became the first person of African-American ancestry to be elected mayor of New Orleans.

While long one of the United States' most visited cities, tourism boomed in the last quarter of the 20th century, becoming a major force in the local economy. Areas of the French Quarter and Central Business District, which were long oriented towards local residential and business uses, increasingly catered to the tourist industry.

A century after the Cotton Centennial Exhibition, New Orleans hosted another World's Fair, the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition.

In 1986, Sidney Barthelemy was elected mayor of the Crescent City; he was re-elected in spring of 1990, serving two terms.

In 1994 and 1998, Marc Morial, the son of "Dutch" Morial, was elected to two consecutive terms as mayor.

The city experienced severe flooding in the May 8, 1995, Louisiana Flood when heavy rains suddenly dumped over a foot of water on parts of town faster than the pumps could remove the water. Water filled up the streets, especially in lower-lying parts of the city. Insurance companies declared more automobiles totaled than in any other U.S. incident up to that time. (See May 8th 1995 Louisiana Flood.)

On the afternoon of Saturday, December 14, 1996, the M/V Bright Field freightliner/bulk cargo vessel slammed into the Riverwalk mall and hotel complex on the Poydras Street Wharf along the Mississippi River. Amazingly, nobody died in the accident, although about 66 were injured. Fifteen shops and 456 hotel rooms were demolished. The freightliner was unable to be removed from the crash site until January 6, 1997, by which time the site had become something of a "must-see" tourist attraction.