Main Gate, Metairie Cemetery, c. 1905. This gate was located
on the corner of Pontchartrain Blvd. and Metairie Road. The Moriarty
monument is visible on the left
History
Metairie Cemetery is located on a high section of ground known
as the Metairie Ridge. The Ridge followed the course of Bayou
Metairie, which is roughly the path of modern-day Metairie Road.
Because Metairie Ridge was high ground (a rare commodity in the
below-sea level metro area), in 1838 investors decided that along
Bayou Metairie would make a good track for horse racing, and the
Metairie Race Course was formed. As New Orleans grew in stature
as a port city, the status of the race track grew as well, attracting
better horses, gamblers with more money, even US Presidents. The
Civil War put a damper on horse racing in the south, and the race
track became a Confederate army camp. After the war, an attempt
was made to revive the race track, but the sour economy of the
Reconstruction help make this attempt a failure. The land was
purchased in 1872 by a group of investors who formed the Metairie
Cemetery Association, who decided to convert it into its current
use.
By 1872, the land occupied by the race track wasn't yet prime
real estate, but it was close enough in to make a good location
for a cemetery. With Canal St. ending nearby and its location
right on the New Basin Canal, the new cemetery rapidly became
a popular place for families having trouble buying space for a
tomb in other cemeteries. It was like moving to the suburbs in
life: you have the space to build your "dream" house,
instead of settling for something much smaller in one of the "established"
neighborhoods already in town. The oval shape of the race track
was retained, which gave Metairie Cemetery a very unique layout.
This layout has been so successful that the original plan for
the cemetery is still being followed over a century later.
Getting There
As mentioned earlier, Metairie Cemetery was located on the west
bank of the New Basin Canal, the canal that connected downtown
with West End. The filled-in canal is now the site of the Pontchartrain
Expressway, to which I-10 was linked in the 1960s. Visitors to
New Orleans who are downtown can easily get to Metairie Cemetery
by taking the Canal-Lakeshore bus line. This is one of the three
Canal St. bus lines that run the length of Canal St., then branch
in different directions at the foot of Canal. The Canal-Cemeteries
line turns around and immediately heads back down Canal St. The
Canal-Lake Vista line turns off of Canal St. onto Canal Blvd.,
runs down Canal Blvd., to Robert E. Lee, then heads through the
Lake Vista subdivision, before returning back to Canal St. the
way it came. The Canal-Lakeshore bus turns onto Metairie Road,
then onto Academy Dr., going past Metairie Cemetery, then down
Academy to Fleur-de-Lis, Veterans Blvd., then into the Lakeshore
Subdivision via West End Blvd.
This World Wide Web document is provided as a public service by
Yatcom Communications. Yatcom Communications is a consulting/public
relations company dedicated to using computer technology to promote
the City of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
