Students of U.S. history know that our country negotiated the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, acquiring 828,000 square miles of land for the bargain sum of $15 million (or 2.8 cents/acre). While the area extended well beyond the state of Louisiana (into the Midwest states and southern Canada), the financial and cultural center was New Orleans. New Orleans was of vital commercial importance due to its strategic location at the mouth of the Mississippi River as it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. The city prospered and became the center for import/export merchants and shippers.
Despite changing its nationality, much of New Orleans
