Orleans History

Tech Central Station has run a brief history of New Orleans' origins. Kinda neat. Link. Excerpt:

The [French bank] charter also granted [John Law's] company control of Louisiana. Law reappointed Jean Baptiste LeMoyne, Sieur de Bienville, to a second term as governor of Louisiana. Bienville had been eager to found a trading post at the foot of a Native American portage along the Mississippi which connected the river to a bayou, and hence to Lake Pontchartrain, in the north. He saw this as his chance. Law and the royal engineer both thought Bienville's choice was ridiculous -- the site was in the middle of a swamp. The small patch of dry ground lay at a curve in the river, Bienville argued, halfway between Fort Rosalie (Natchez) along the Mississippi and Fort Louis at Mobile. Also, he said, it would be safe from hurricanes. Being the highest-ranking official on-site, Bienville had his way, and Nouvelle Orleans -- named after Law's benefactor -- was born in 1718. Not that it mattered for John Law: by the end of 1720, he was bankrupt and had fled Paris for Belgium.