700 South Peters (Orleans Manufacturing Co.)
New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Marker Inscription
700 South Peters. Built in 1910-11 for the Orleans Manufacturing Company. This historic structure is architecturally significant to the Historic Warehouse District, listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The Story
This sturdy commercial building at 700 South Peters went up in 1910–11 for the Orleans Manufacturing Company in New Orleans's bustling riverfront warehouse district. Its brick-and-timber construction is typical of the working structures that stored and moved the goods of a booming Gulf port.
Why it matters
It reflects the industrial and shipping economy that powered New Orleans commerce in the early 20th century and now anchors a revitalized historic district.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When this building rose in 1910 and 1911, New Orleans was one of the great ports of the United States, its economy built on the Mississippi River and the ceaseless movement of goods to and from the Gulf of Mexico. Cotton, sugar, coffee, and countless other commodities flowed through the city, and the riverfront district hummed with the work of storing, sorting, and shipping them.
The early twentieth century was an age of industry and expansion, and warehouse districts like this one were its workhorses. Sturdy commercial buildings went up close to the docks and rail lines, designed less for beauty than for the practical business of moving freight through a booming port.
This structure at 700 South Peters belongs squarely to that world — a purpose-built commercial building erected for a manufacturing company in a neighborhood defined by trade and industry.
People & events
The marker records that the building was constructed in 1910–11 for the Orleans Manufacturing Company. Rather than a single dramatic event, its story is the steady one of commerce: a company needing solid space to make, store, or move its goods, in a district organized around exactly that need.
Buildings like this one are the settings where the everyday labor of a port city happened — the loading and unloading, the shipping and receiving, the unglamorous work that kept a major American port running. Its very ordinariness in its own time is what makes it a valuable survivor now.
The marker also notes that the structure is recognized as architecturally significant and listed in the National Register of Historic Places. That recognition marks a shift: what was once simply a functional workplace is now valued as a piece of the district's shared architectural heritage.
Its place in the American story
The Warehouse District tells a national story about how American cities grew on the back of trade and manufacturing in the early 1900s. Ports like New Orleans connected the country's interior to the wider world, and the buildings that handled that commerce were the physical infrastructure of a rising industrial economy.
This building's later life is just as American. Across the country, old warehouse and factory districts once written off as obsolete have been rediscovered, preserved, and revitalized — their brick-and-timber character prized rather than demolished. Recognition on the National Register reflects that broader movement to protect industrial-era architecture.
So the site speaks to two national chapters at once: the industrial and shipping economy that powered early-twentieth-century commerce, and the modern effort to honor and reuse the working buildings that economy left behind.
If you visit
Come to look up and appreciate the bones of the place. Warehouse-district architecture of this era rewards attention to solid, honest construction — the masonry, the proportions, the workmanlike detailing meant to last. This is a building whose beauty is in its function.
The surrounding Warehouse District is one of New Orleans's most walkable historic neighborhoods, and this marker fits easily into a stroll among restored commercial buildings. Wandering here, you can feel how a district built for freight has become a place for people.
If you're planning a New Orleans itinerary beyond the usual sights, a walk through this district offers a quieter, ground-level view of the city's working past. Read the plaque, take in the streetscape, and let it connect you to the river trade that made the city — no admission or appointment required to simply stand and look.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Julia Row
New Orleans, LA
Julia Row is a terrace of thirteen identical townhouses erected in 1832–33 for the New Orleans Building Company, designed by architect James H. Dakin. The second house from St. Charles Avenue was the childhood home of Henry Hobson Richardson, who grew up to become the Boston architect famous for the Richardsonian Romanesque style; in 1976 the Preservation Resource Center restored 604 Julia Street.
United States Custom House
New Orleans, LA
The United States Custom House on Canal Street is one of New Orleans's great public buildings, a massive granite structure begun in the mid-nineteenth century to handle the customs of one of America's busiest ports. Its construction stretched across decades and the Civil War, during which the unfinished building served federal purposes. This plaque records its designation as a National Historic Landmark of national significance.
Bank of Louisiana Building
New Orleans, LA
Erected in 1826, the Bank of Louisiana survived repeated fires and, after the bank's liquidation in 1867, led a remarkable second life — serving briefly as Louisiana's State Capitol in 1868–69 and later as a criminal court, an American Legion hall, and more. Architect James Gallier, Jr., added the Royal Street entrance after an 1861 fire.
Louisiana State Bank Building
New Orleans, LA
This plaque records the 1983 National Historic Landmark designation of the Louisiana State Bank Building on Royal Street. Completed around 1821, it was the last work of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, one of the fathers of American architecture, who died of yellow fever in New Orleans before its completion.