French Market — America's Oldest
The French Market in New Orleans is America's oldest public market, originating as a Native American trading post called Bulbancha around 1675. Native tribes traded here 50 years before New Orleans was founded. The oldest standing structure, the Meat Market, was built in 1813 by surveyor Jacques Tanesse. Café du Monde became the market's oldest tenant in 1862, following earlier street vendors like Rose Nicaud.
New Orleans · from the walk “Moon Walk: New Orleans Riverfront Revealed” · audio ~3 min · Generated
French Market, 1008 N Peters St, New Orleans
- Native American tribes traded at the French Market site in New Orleans starting around 1675 in Bulbancha.
- City surveyor Jacques Tanesse designed the French Market's oldest standing structure, the Meat Market, in 1813.
- Spanish administrators ordered the construction of the French Market's first covered structure in 1782.
- Formerly enslaved woman Rose Nicaud sold coffee at the French Market before Café du Monde arrived in 1862.
Who designed the oldest standing building at the French Market in New Orleans?
You're standing in the oldest public market in America. But here's what most people don't realize... this place was already Ancient before any European ever set foot here.......... What was here before the French? Before the Spanish? Before anyone thought to name it?......... The Native peoples — the Choctaw, the Chitimacha, the Tunica, and the Natchez nations — had been trading on this very ground since at least sixteen seventy-five... more than Fifty years before New Orleans was even founded. They called this region Bulbancha... "the place of many tongues." And that name tells you everything. This was a crossroads where languages mixed, goods changed hands, and cultures collided along the banks of the great river.......... Then the Spanish took notice. Around seventeen eighty-two, they built the city's first formal market structure. But a seventeen seventy-nine ordinance reveals Why... the city declared that "great abuses" were being committed with provisions "exposed to the elements." So they demanded a covered building for public health.......... The oldest structure still standing here was built in eighteen thirteen — the Meat Market, designed by city surveyor Jacques Tanesse. And here's a detail most visitors never learn: this original market was called "the Meat Shops," and it was the Only place in the entire French Quarter legally permitted to sell meat. The name "French Market" only came later, once that monopoly faded.......... Now, the coffee. You can probably smell it right now from Café du Monde. But the story of coffee here doesn't begin with them. It begins with a woman named Rose Nicaud — a formerly enslaved woman who bought her own freedom in the early eighteen hundreds. She sold coffee from a portable cart she rolled through this market on Sundays. Visitors wrote about her "sparkling coffee," as dark and flowing as ink. Her little stand inspired other freed women to pursue their own independence... one cup at a time. Café du Monde didn't arrive until eighteen sixty-two, becoming the market's oldest official tenant.......... Stand here for a moment and breathe it in. Over two hundred years of buying, selling, and gathering... on ground where people have been trading for more than Three centuries. Bulbancha endures.