Town of Carrollton
New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Marker Inscription
Town of Carrollton. Laid out by Charles Zimpel in 1833 on site of Macarty Plantation, formerly uppermost part of Bienville's 1719 land grant. Jefferson Parish seat 1852-1874. Annexed 1874 by New Orleans. 1854 courthouse designed by Henry Howard.
Erected by Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism
The Story
Surveyor Charles Zimpel laid out Carrollton in 1833 on the former Macarty Plantation, land that had once been the uppermost portion of Bienville's 1719 French grant. The town served as the seat of Jefferson Parish from 1852 to 1874, when it was annexed by a growing New Orleans. Its 1854 courthouse was designed by the noted architect Henry Howard.
Why it matters
Carrollton's rise and absorption trace how New Orleans expanded upriver in the 19th century, swallowing independent towns built on old plantation land.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early nineteenth century, the land just upriver from New Orleans was a patchwork of plantations strung along the Mississippi, their long narrow lots reaching back from the water. This was some of the oldest settled ground in the region, tracing back to the French colonial era, when vast tracts were granted to the men who founded the colony.
By the 1830s, the young United States was booming, and cities were spilling outward. Speculators and surveyors saw opportunity in the sugar lands near a growing port. Turning a plantation into a town — laying out streets and selling lots — was one of the era's great engines of expansion.
Carrollton was born from exactly that impulse. It rose on ground that had passed from a French colonial grant through generations of plantation ownership, and was reimagined as a place for people to live, trade, and govern themselves.
People & events
The town was laid out in 1833 by the surveyor Charles Zimpel, on the site of the Macarty Plantation — land that had once been the uppermost part of a grant dating to Bienville's era in 1719. Zimpel's plan converted plantation acreage into a proper town, with streets and building lots ready for a new community.
Carrollton grew important enough to become the seat of Jefferson Parish, serving in that role from 1852 to 1874. As a parish seat, it needed the buildings of local government, and in 1854 a courthouse was built to the design of the noted architect Henry Howard, one of the region's most accomplished builders of the period.
But the same growth that made Carrollton a town also sealed its fate as an independent one. In 1874, the expanding city of New Orleans annexed it, folding the once-separate community into the metropolis pushing steadily upriver.
Its place in the American story
Carrollton's short life as an independent town — laid out, made a seat of government, then absorbed within four decades — is a compact version of a story that played out across nineteenth-century America. Cities grew by swallowing the smaller communities at their edges, and yesterday's separate town became today's neighborhood.
Its roots also connect the young republic to a much older past. The ground runs back through plantation ownership to a French colonial land grant, a reminder that the American map was drawn over lines laid down long before the United States existed.
That a distinguished architect designed its courthouse speaks to the ambition of these upstart towns. They did not think of themselves as temporary. They built for permanence, even when history had other plans.
If you visit
Today Carrollton is a neighborhood of New Orleans rather than a town of its own, and part of the pleasure of visiting is learning to read that layered history in the streets around you. The old street grid still carries the logic of the plan first drawn in the 1830s.
As you walk, imagine the place as it once was — an independent community with its own courthouse and its own civic pride, set apart from the city that would one day absorb it. The bend of the river nearby is the same one that shaped the original plantation lots.
It's a good stop for travelers who like their history in the everyday fabric of a place. There's no need for a grand monument here; the neighborhood itself is the artifact.
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.
Related people
- · Charles Zimpel
- · Henry Howard
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bienville monument
New Orleans, LA
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, the French-Canadian colonizer who founded New Orleans in 1718, spent decades governing France's struggling Louisiana colony along the lower Mississippi. Erected in 1955 for the Louisiana Purchase Sesquicentennial, this statue offers the "homage of Louisiana, Canada, and France" to the man who chose the crescent bend in the river where the city still stands.
Jackson Square
New Orleans, LA
Laid out in 1721 by engineer Adrien de Pauger as the French colonial Place d'Armes, this square became the Spanish Plaza de Armas and, in 1803, the stage for the flag ceremonies transferring Louisiana from Spain to France and then to the United States. After the Pontalba buildings rose in 1851, the Baroness Pontalba had it redesigned and renamed for Andrew Jackson, whose equestrian statue was unveiled in 1856.
Republic of West Florida
St. Tammany Parish, LA
St. Tammany Parish lay within the Spanish-governed West Florida parishes and was not part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. In September 1810 residents revolted against Spanish rule and declared the Republic of West Florida, raising their own flag and electing a president. The republic lasted just 74 days before the United States annexed the territory by force in December 1810.
Founding of Covington
Covington, LA
John Wharton Collins founded the town of Wharton here in March 1813, naming it for his grandfather. Three years later the Louisiana legislature renamed it Covington in honor of General Leonard Covington, a hero of the War of 1812.