June 09, 2025

Podcast 57 – The 1788 Fire

31 minutes

The 1788 fire destroyed French Colonial New Orleans.

The Great 1788 Fire

We’ve all heard the stories of the 1788 fire. This is not a new or hot take, but some additional information.

The Pod

PDF here

Point of Origin

Street grid from 1722, Look for the church, top center, then go left half a block.

St. Louis Church, which burned totally in the fire.

Governor Miro

Esteban Rodriguez Miro, Sixth Spanish Governor of Louisiana

Chartres and Toulouse

Miro mis-reports the origin of the fire in his report to the Spanish Crown. He reported the origin to be at Chartres and Toulouse, not closer to the church. The building on the corner was Nunez’s office.

Louisiana Anthology

Shout out to Stephen Payne and Bruce Magee of the Louisiana Anthology (https://louisiana-anthology.org) for all their hard work, including maintaining a copy of Castellanos’ translation of Mrio’s report on the fire.

Discord

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How it works

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Four Ways to Support NOLA History Guy

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