McDonoghville national register nomination

jefferson parish & orleans parish, louisiana

Walking down the sidewalks of the McDonoghville Historic District, the quiet is interrupted by wind from the Mississippi River, sounds of children playing outside and the mechanic hum of lawn equipment manicuring the yards.  The houses are spaced apart with small yards and gardens, some with fences.  Its lush landscape and pastoral quality reflect it roots as a small farming village – maintaining a genuine neighborhood feel that has lasted over two centuries of the neighborhood’s evolution (1814 to 2020). 

The McDonoghville Historic District is a working-class neighborhood spanning Jefferson Parish and Orleans Parish on the west bank of the Mississippi River across from New Orleans, Louisiana. Situated on land designated as John McDonogh’s Monplaisir plantation, McDonogh commissioned J.V. Poiter in 1814 to sketch a layout for the village of “McDonoghville,” making it one of the Westbank’s earliest subdivided developments. After McDonogh’s death in 1850, some land was willed to his servants and slaves, and the rest was subdivided into plots for sale. In the 1850s, the Westbank’s large German immigrant population was at the center of the railroad boom. The advent of the railroad phased out the steamboat industry as a newer and cheaper form of transportation, including the barges that floated downriver to end their journey at the Port of New Orleans. Bargeboards were the most inexpensive and reliable building material, making them ideal for immigrant communities to build their homes. The visual and anecdotal evidence of bargeboard homes is seen in Shotguns and Creole Cottages throughout McDonoghville.  

The McDonoghville Historic District consists of architectural styles ranging from the 1860s through the 1960s.  The district’s residential buildings are typically modest with an attractive stylistic detailing typical of working-class urban neighborhoods in New Orleans and other cities throughout Louisiana. The district contains 761 resources, of which 622 resources are contributing buildings, 137 are non-contributing buildings, 1 is a contributing site, and 1 is a non-contributing site. Overall, the integrity of the McDonoghville Historic District qualifies it for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.