Ira Wray frequently drives downtown and can’t help but notice four diagonal streets that approach a two-block area of Government Street.
“It looks like there would’ve had to be something important or interesting at the center many years ago, but now it’s mostly just a law office, a church and a McDonalds,” Wray said. “What used to be here?
What? A church and a McDonald’s aren’t good enough for you?
We’re joking, Ira. When this section of downtown Baton Rouge developed in the early 19th century, there was a dream of something grand. But, like so many dreams, it never came true.
The dreamer was Elias Toutant Beauregard, a retired military officer and businessman who owned a plantation on the southern edge of Baton Rouge, which was then the capital of Spain’s West Florida colonial territory. Beauregard decided to convert his property into a town inspired by European cities.
After hiring a designer and being disappointed by what was proposed, Beauregard hired Arsene LaCarriere LaTour. LaTour was a French engineer who later served as Andrew Jackson's chief engineer for the battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.
LaTour presented his plan in 1806. Receiving the permission of Don Carlos de GrandPre, governor of West Florida, Beauregard adopted it. The 9-by-12-block area fronting the Mississippi River included a cathedral square on a wide street (now Government Street) with diagonal streets from each corner of the square that would lead to public buildings, a hospital, a college and an open space.
The design also proposed military barracks, a formal garden, a Vauxhall (pleasure garden) and coliseum east of what is now East Boulevard.
Those diagonal streets are the ones Wray passes each day. They were named for Bishop Luis de Penalvert, then head of the Catholic Church in Louisiana; the Marquis de Somerulos, captain-general of Cuba; GrandPre and Beauregard. Many of the north-south and east-west streets in the plan retain the names Beauregard chose. On July 22, 1806, sales of lots began.
Very little of those plans turned into reality.
It’s unclear whether Beauregard ever contacted the Catholic parish, then named Our Lady of Sorrows, about locating a cathedral where he planned. The first Catholic church was near the current State Capitol in 1792, according to the Rev. Frank Uter’s “A History of the Catholic Church in Baton Rouge,” and the second church was built on land where the present St. Joseph Cathedral stands, seven blocks north of Beauregard’s site.
There is a place of worship where the cathedral square was proposed, but it’s Wesley United Methodist Church rather than a Catholic sanctuary.
Where Beauregard saw a hospital at the end of Grandpre Street is now First United Methodist Church. Beauregard Street ends in a residential neighborhood instead of a college. The entrance ramp to Interstate 10 westbound occupies the proposed plaza at the end of Penalver Street. The end of Somerulos Street is where the City Court now stands.
It's impossible to say if the outcome would have been different had Beauregard not died soon after the project began. He was thrown from a horse and died in 1809, according to a memorial to him at findagrave.com. A year later, Spanish rule over the territory ended with the West Florida Rebellion, and Baton Rouge became part of the United States and the capitol of Louisiana.
However, Beauregard’s legacy endures in the district’s name — Beauregard Town — and, of course, in those diagonal streets that caught Wray’s eye.
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