The first in a series of neighborhood profiles: Treme

We’ve been receiving a lot of inquiries and searches from people interested in learning more about the Treme neighborhood and wanted to answer those requests with some history about the area. Please feel free to ask questions or give input in the comment area and we’ll answer them as best we can!

Treme retains the feel of an old Creole New Orleans neighborhood. Second line parades and jazz funerals are still common, while several neighborhood bars are gathering places for musicians. Its architectural integrity and African-American heritage has drawn new residents from all over the country. As the same time, many Treme families proudly trace their heritage in the neighborhood back for and five generations. many old-timers can remember the days when musicians informally jammed on neighborhood stoops or around the woodsheds in the evenings.

Treme has been a multicultral, cosmopolitan community from its beginning. Immigrants and people of color were among the earlist residents here and refugees from San Domingue, both black and white, who flooded into the city between 1790 and 1810, swelled their numbers. Treme emerged as a center of African-American power in the mid 19th century when Rodolphe Desdunes, Thomy Lafon, and other free blacks who organized opposition to slavery and restrictive race laws lived here. The same figures endowed educational facilities, orphanages and religious institutions to serve people of color.
Treme

Treme was formally established as a neighborhood of New Orleans in 1810, but people had been settling along the high ridge of the Bayou Road from lake Pontchartrain to the gates of the city long before that. The first improvement here, in about 1721, was a brickyard established by Company of the Indies’ employee Charles de Morand, who later added a tile works, or tuilerie, on the same grant. By the 1790s, de Morand’s plantaiton just beyond the bayou gate was in the hands of Claude Treme, who developed part of his land into streets and began selling lots in 1798. The city purchased the 40-acre development in 1810 and formally annexed it in 1812.

The Morand-Treme plantation house became the home of the College d’Orleans, then the main building of the Carmelite Convent. Its demolition in 1927 marks the loss of one of New Orleans’ most important historic buildings.

A Treme Timeline:

(scroll left and right to view more events)