Barthelemy Lafon

[3][4] After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, with the Mississippi River open to free trade, land owners just upriver from the Vieux Carré realized that the old quarter dominated by the Spanish and French could not contain the great number of Americans who were now flocking to the city, and they retained Lafon to subdivide their property and create an American suburb.

His designs crossed the boundaries of five plantations (Soule, LaCourse, Annunciation, Nuns, and Panis), to include all properties up to Felicity Street.

A lover of the classics, Lafon named his streets after the nine muses of Greek mythology: Calliope, Clio, Erato, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Euterpe, Polymnia, and Urania.

His professional services included mapmaking, designing the plan for Donaldsonville in 1806,[8] and surveying and recommending improvements to the fortifications of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

Lafon died of yellow fever in New Orleans on September 29, 1820, and was buried in Saint Louis Cemetery Number 1.