The street names that Bernard de Marigny de Mandeville chose for the north shore city that bears his name might lack the whimsy of those he bestowed on streets in New Orleans — Poets, Craps, and, most famously perhaps, Desire.
But what Old Mandeville street names lack in playfulness, they make up for in historic significance, according to Nancy Clark, member of the Old Mandeville Historical Association. It’s a history that people can explore on their own with the latest of the organization’s self-guided walking tours, which are available for free at the Lang House, 605 Carroll St.
With the exception of Rue de Lac, now known as Lakeshore Drive, Mandeville’s oldest streets are named for real people, many of them military figures from the Battle of New Orleans, the French and American Revolutions and the Napoleonic Wars.
“They were all people that had some association to Marigny and his family, New Orleans and Louisiana,” Clark said.
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Born in New Orleans to a wealthy family, Marigny began buying up parcels of land on the north shore in the 1820s for what he envisioned as a resort town for folks in New Orleans.
In Clark’s view, the names of Mandeville’s streets offer an intimate portrait of the town’s founder as a more mature man who wanted to create a legacy for himself and his family, what Clark called an accomplishment that would endure.
What hasn’t always endured are the names themselves. In 2005, the Mandeville City Council changed Gerard Street to Girod Street, in what Clark says was a well-intentioned effort to fix what was at the time believed to be a mistake.
A Sanborn Fire Insurance map from the early 1900s listed the street as Girod, Clark said, and the reasoning was that it had been named for Nicholas Girod, the sixth mayor of New Orleans.
But the street appears on an earlier map as Gerard Street and was apparently named for Maurice Etienne Gerard, a brigadier general in the Napoleonic Wars and the 13th prime minister of France, according to the guide.
Girod Street in Old Mandeville on Monday, December 20, 2021. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
“They decided based on one piece of evidence,” Clark said of the City Council, specifically the maps by Sanborn Fire Insurance Company that is known for its record-keeping and depth of information, not only in Louisiana but nationally.
“None of us did enough research. The Sanborn maps are an invaluable tool, but you need more supporting documentation because they are full of mistakes, misnames and misspellings,” she said.
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Foy Street, for example, appears as Fox on Sanborn maps in 1915, 1926 and 1941. But Foy appears on a much earlier map, and according to the guide, there are two potential namesakes: Maximillien Sebastien Foy, 1775-1825, a hero of the Napoleonic Wars; and Rene Prosper Foy, 1787-1854, a Napoleonic veteran who emigrated and fought with distinction in the Battle of New Orleans.
The self-guided tour is the fourth so-called Street Stroll that the Old Mandeville Historic Association has produced. Earlier walking tour guides focus on Lakeshore Drive, town landmarks and historic churches.
Clark began researching the street names over the summer as a COVID project, she said. “To me, it was just a story that needed to be told. People were always asking me questions,” she said. But she stressed that the guide is based on “what I was able to dig up,” and is not so much a definitive history but a work in progress.
Lakeshore Drive, one of the more high-profile streets in the city, was listed as Rue Du Lac on an 1834 map, but Clark, who interviewed residents, couldn’t find anyone who knew it by that name. Many just called it the Beach, she said. It was given the name Lakeshore Drive in the 1980s.
It’s also uncertain when street signs went up in the city. Clark said that she talked to people with deep roots in Mandeville who never heard their grandparents mention seeing them. “It was a small town, and everyone kind of knew where things were,” she said.
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Clark hopes that the guide helps tell what she calls a “more honest story,” about Mandeville’s founder, who she believes has been marginalized as a gambler who blew through a fortune when he was an educated and erudite man with ideas and relationships with significant historic figures.
“This research opens so many interesting avenues, it just made me curious for more,” she said. “The circle of people he knew and who sought him out were an impressive crews. There is a lot more to know here, and I would like to know it.”
