History
The area along the river front was developed first, at the start of the 19th century, followed by the natural high land along Gentilly Ridge.
The designation of this area as the "9th Ward" dates from 1852, when the boundaries of the Wards of New Orleans were redrawn as part of the reorganization of the city from three municipalities into one centralized city government.
Along the lakefront were various fishing camps built on piers, the most famous collection being Little Woods. Such camps were common along the lakefront in the 19th and early 20th century, but the collection at Little Woods was the longest lasting concentration, many surviving until Hurricane Georges in 1998.
The area of the 9th Ward on the back side of St. Claude Avenue experienced the city's most significant and longest standing flooding from the New Orleans Hurricane of 1915 due to a break in the protection levee at Florida Avenue.
The Industrial Canal was dredged through the neighborhood at the start of the 1920s.
Most of the area between Gentilly Ridge and Lake Pontchartrain was swamp, not drained and developed until the mid and late 20th century.
Lincoln Beach was an amusement park along the lakefront for African-Americans during the era of racial segregation. The nearby "Pontchartrain Beach" was the corresponding amusement area for whites.
Parts of the 9th Ward flooded during Hurricane Flossy in 1956, and the Lower 9th Ward experienced catastrophic flooding in Hurricane Betsy in 1965.
Read more about this topic: Ninth Ward Of New Orleans
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)