Pictures 43 and 43.3.

These two pictures are looking out from a vantage point near Camp Street (behind the photographer) toward the Clay statue at the St. Charles/Royal Streets intersection and the Touro Building behind it.  In the distance at the left is the steeple of the Christ Church, which dates these pictures to before 1883.  They are similar enough that they were probably taken by the same photographer just minutes apart, although they were published by different companies.  (The author speculates that they were both taken by George Mugnier, who then sold one and published the other himself.)  In the center foreground of the upper photo, we can see the blurred image of a horse (or mule) drawn wagon making its way in on Canal Street.  At the right foreground, another blur marks a moving horsecar on the outer riverbound track; it might be on any of the Annunciation, Coliseum, (North) Claiborne, or Tulane lines.  Just to the right of that car is a more solid image of a horsecar on the inner riverbound track, on the Magazine or Prytania line.  Another car on one of those lines is seen on the turntable at the lower center of the picture.  Immediately to our left from the turntable is a starter's house, and between the starter's house and the Clay statue is a horsecar on the loop for the Orleans RR lines.  Beyond the Clay statue, to our left, we can see the starter's house for the other turntable, and several horsecars on the tracks leading out (to our left) from that turntable.  In the lower picture, there are horsecars of the Magazine and Prytania lines prominent at the right, on the inner riverbound track.  We can see the motive power of the second car well enough to identify it as a mule, as were most probably all the other animals used on the New Orleans “horsecars” of the time.  Again, there is an Orleans RR car on its loop, just this side of the Henry Clay statue. — W. M. Chase (upper), Mugnier (lower)

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