Global Celotex

By 1928, the New Orleans-founded Celotex Company had expanded its international operations to include much of the European continent. As a sugar cane industry, Celotex boasted a $12 million production out of New Orleans.(1) The bagasse building material shipped directly from its Mississippi River plant to these foreign markets.

Dependence on European exports began to detrimentally  impact the company in 1938, when apprehensions regarding political stability caused stock market fluctuations. Celotex posted quarterly losses and began to reconfigure its business for domestic and wartime production.


(1)"Sugar Cane Industries." The Times-Picayune 4 February 1931.

Image above:  From Verwendung von Celotex in Gebäuden. Chicago: The Celotex Company, 1928. This copy bears the stamp of the Hungarian Celotex representative, Magyar Celotex-Árusito Vállalat, which was located in Budapest on Harmincad Street. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

WTC: First Thoughts

Edward D. Stone's early proposal for the International Trade Mart, located at the foot of Canal Street/The Mississippi River (1958). The structure is now known as the World Trade Center, and the city is currently reviewing five proposals for its rehabilitation.

From: The Annual Report of the Mayor. New Orleans: 1958/59. Jones Hall Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Thermo-Con Cellular Concrete

We have mentioned in previous posts the role of Andrew Higgins in developing post-War building products geared towards affordable housing. This summer, the Association for Preservation Technology International is digitizing a sizable portion of the Southeastern Architectural Archive's trade catalogs, which include Higgins promotional materials.

Image above:  Cover.  Thermo-Con Division. Building with Thermo-Con Cellular Concrete. New Orleans: Higgins Inc. Circa 1948. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. View the full brochure via the Internet Archive's Building Technology Heritage Library.

NEW! Architectural Trade Catalogs Finding Aid

With special thanks to Tulane University student Breanna White, the Southeastern Architectural Archive recently finalized the processing of its Architectural Trade Catalogs. The nucleus of the SEAA's trade catalog collection came directly from architects practicing in the New Orleans metropolitan area who received them in the course of doing business. The collection has steadily grown over the last thirty years -- to over 1300 titles-- and the SEAA continues to acquire trade catalogs from a variety of sources. These ephemeral publications document myriad aspects of the building trades, from drawing materials and tools to construction materials and methods, finishes, fittings, furnishings, paving, plumbing and heating equipment, mechanical and electrical systems.

Although the vast majority of the SEAA's catalogs represent the American building trades, the collection includes catalogs of Spanish azulejos, British mantels, French ironwork and Italian terrazzo. It is especially strong with respect to the Southern Pine Association, the largest timber trade organization in the South, which printed and distributed catalogs from its New Orleans headquarters. Historic preservation researchers, property owners undertaking renovation projects, and those interested in the history of business and advertising, will find the collection to be an especially important resource.

Consult the finding aid here.

Image above: James Freret, architect. “Plan of Church Built in Franklin, LA.” Detail from Lhote Lumber  Company. n.p.: Lhote Lumber Company. 1883, p. 81. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Progressive New Orleans 1940

Metro Goldwyn Mayer's "A Brief New Orleans History Lesson" (1940) includes mention of modern construction methods and also Tulane University.

Consulates in New Orleans 1964

In 1964, the city of New Orleans paid honor to the members of the New Orleans Consular Corps and their "Ladies." The International Relations Office of the City of New Orleans, then located in Rathbone DeBuys'  International Trade Mart (#1), was the liaison office for the consular corps and arranged an event program that included an art exhibit and a performance by the New Orleans Recreation Department Civic Orchestra.

There were 41 consulates in New Orleans at the time:

Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Bolivia
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Finland
France
Germany
Great Britain
Greece
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Italy
Japan
Liberia
Mexico
Monaco
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Norway
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippine Republic
Portugal
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Uruguay
Venezuela
Yugoslavia

By 1969, many of these consulates and others were located in Edward Durell Stone's International Trade Mart (#2), located at 2 Canal Street, shown below.

Matt Anderson, photographer. Mississippi River from Plaza Tower, New Orleans, LA. Circa 1970. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

For list of consulates, see: New Orleans International Relations Office. Second Annual Reception in honour of the New Orleans Corps and Their Ladies. New Orleans: 1964. Frank H. Boatner Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Dedication of the Industrial Canal

This photograph was taken by an unidentified photographer on 5 May 1923 during the dedication of the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal. Governor Parker addressed the thousands who had gathered at the locks to celebrate the public holiday. Dauphine and Claiborne Avenue streetcars transported hundreds of visitors to the Ninth Ward location.

The photograph includes the steamboats Susquehanna and Aunt Dinah as well as a dock board tugboat that participated in the event's marine pageant.

Image above: Unidentified photographer. Dedication of the Industrial canal. 5 May 1923. Miscellaneous Photographs Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Modern New Orleans Seventy Years Ago

Left: Modern New Orleans, film still with view of Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth's Shushan Airport, c. late 1930s. Full film from the Prelinger Archive available online via the Internet Archive


[enter "modern new orleans" in the search box at url: http://www.archive.org/].

The film also shows Canal Street, the Huey Long Bridge (1935), Municipal Auditorium (1930), United Fruit Company operations at the Port of New Orleans, steamboats on the Mississippi, and the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC).

The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains architectural drawings related to Shushan Airport and the Municipal Auditorium, as well as photographs of the Port of New Orleans, the Huey Long Bridge, and some of the canals.

New Orleans in 1950

A view into the crystal ball, authorized by the Krewe of Rex in 1899:

"New Orleans is now the most healthful city in the entire Mississippi Valley. The mild winters exclude those maladies known only to the rigorous climates further north. Yellow fever and kindred plagues have long since ceased to exist. The perfect drainage, perfect water supply and perfect sewerage have relegated those dreadful maladies to the oblivion which so well becomes them.
Since the building of the Nicaragua canal in the early part of this century, the commerce of this port has arisen yearly in the most rapid manner. The first year after the canal was built the imports and exports of New Orleans increased over 20 per cent. The building of the canal, together with the perfect sanitary condition that the city had been placed in, made it the principal port in the country.
[. . .]
One of the most important cities of the United States, in point of the business it carries on, is Havana. Although Cuba has not been a part of the union quite fifty years, yet it is in every sense of the word an American city. Even the Spanish language, spoken there exclusively fifty years ago, has become almost a forgotten tongue. The great volume of commerce carried on between the states situated on the continent and Cuba, goes through New Orleans.
Porto Rico has also become thoroughly American. The great resources of that now powerful state lay dormant after the island had been acquired by the United States through the Spanish American war. The importance of the island may be shown best when it is known that Porto Rico is represented in the Congress at Washington by thirteen congressmen.
The states last admitted into the union, those along the northern portion of South America, have also grown and developed most marvelously within the last few years. Mexico, that is, the territory known during the last century by that name, but now comprising eleven states of the union, has also become one of the most enterprising sections of this great nation. All this development in the gulf region of the two continents has added to the greatness of the city of New Orleans." [pp. 60-63]

Want to read more?

Whyte, J.H. New Orleans in 1950, being a story of the carnival city, from the pen of a descendant of Herodotus, possessing the gift of prescience. New Orleans: A.W. Hyatt, Co., 407 Camp Street, 1899. Louisiana Collection, Special Collections Division, 976.31 W 629

Whyte also addresses modern homes, office buildings, and hotels.