New Orleans was established in 1718 by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, on a site that for centuries had been an Indian portage between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. The city was named for Philip II, Duke d’Orleans, Uncle and Regent of Louis XV and most of the streets were named after the reigning Bourbon family. As capital of the Louisiana Territory, New Orleans was intended to extend France’s dominion along the Gulf of Mexico past the established, but poorly managed, colonies of Mobile and Biloxi.

Colonists were lured to New Orleans and the city soon became the major settlement in the New World, bustling with industry and bristling with political importance. In 1762, at the end of the Seven Years War, France ceded all her territory west of the Mississippi River, including New Orleans, to Spain. The city remained under Spanish rule until 1800, when Napoleon forced Spain to return the Louisiana Territory to France.

Two devastating fires, in 1786 and 1794, destroyed nearly the entire city. Because of this, the oldest buildings in The French Quarter are almost entirely of Spanish design. One exception is the old Ursuline Convent, at 1114 Chartres Street, which dates from 1750, and is generally thought to be the oldest structure in the Mississippi valley.