1481 Exposition
circa 1889 The land in front of this house, from the Mississippi River to the universities, was once a plantation acquired by Pierre Foucher in 1793. Several of the massive oak trees from the Foucher property survive to this day. Upon Pierre's death, his son, Louis, built a horse racetrack and tried to install a railway line here. Neither scheme succeeded and Louis abandoned the plantation before the Civil War to assume a new persona in France as the Marquis de Circé. During the Civil War, both Confederate and Union troops occupied the plantation, leaving it in ruins. After the war, speculators bought the forlorn site and successfully lobbied the state legislature to acquire it for a public park. But there was no funding to develop the park, and it continued to lay fallow until it was chosen as the site for the 1884 World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition. The spectacular 1884 World's Fair covered these grounds with gigantic wooden structures and broad paths lit with the most dazzling display of electric lights that had ever been seen. The Main Building, located directly across the lagoon from this spot, covered thirty-three acres and showcased a vast array of inventions including telephones, elevators, and the latest steam locomotives. This sidewalk, fittingly named "Exposition" Boulevard, was once a wide shell road for carriages bringing visitors to the entrance of the World's Fair ahead on Prytania Street. Ultimately the World's Fair closed amid financial turmoil and the future of this area was once again uncertain. In 1889, Edward Demarest, the cashier of the notorious Louisiana Lottery, bought seven lots in this square. At the time it was considered a radical idea to live here, described by a Carrollton newspaper as a "dead sea" and "too far upriver" from New Orleans. Undaunted, Demarest built this house, a prime example of the Victorian Queen-Anne style, using lumber from the dismantled World's Fair buildings. Demarest's life was not without controversy and tragedy, but he was known for his fighting spirit. In the 1880s he and his wife, Victory, suffered the deaths of three of their young sons from diphtheria. In 1896, an arsonist, assumed to be an enemy of Lottery officials, set a fire in the front room of the house that nearly destroyed it. In 1899, their beautiful daughter. Hazel, died at age 12 from appendicitis. Yet Demarest courageously rebuilt his home along with the four Calhoun Street houses behind it for his four surviving children, all before the development of Audubon Park. 1451 Exposition remained in his family for 90 years and still stands today as a testament to his vision and resilience.