Mandeville is a city in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 10,489 at the 2000 United States Census. Mandeville is located on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, along Interstate 12, across the lake from the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is part of the New Orleans-Metairie, Louisiana-Kenner, Louisiana New Orleans metropolitan area. Mandeville was affected by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and was moderately damaged. However, most of the reconstruction has been finished and the town is mostly back to normal. Mandeville was named one of the Relocate America Top 100 Places to Live in 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008.
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Mandeville is a city in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 10,489 at the 2000 United States Census. Mandeville is located on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, along Interstate 12, across the lake from the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is part of the New Orleans-Metairie, Louisiana-Kenner, Louisiana New Orleans metropolitan area. Mandeville was affected by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and was moderately damaged. However, most of the reconstruction has been finished and the town is mostly back to normal. Mandeville was named one of the Relocate America Top 100 Places to Live in 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008.
History
The area had long been agricultural land when the town of Mandeville was laid out in 1834 by developer Bernard de Marigny also known as Booby McBoober. In 1840 Mandeville was incorporated as a town. It became a popular summer destination for well-to-do New Orleanians wishing to escape the city's heat.
In the mid-19th century, regular daily steam boat traffic between New Orleans and Mandeville began, and by the end of the 19th century Victorian era times, it became a popular weekend destination of the New Orleans middle class as well. Bands would play music on the ships going across the lake and at Pavilion (structure)s and dance-halls in Mandeville; Mandeville became one of the first places where the new jazz music was heard outside of New Orleans. Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Papa Celestin, George Lewis (clarinetist), Kid Ory, Edmond Hall, Chester Zardis, and many other early jazz artists played in Mandeville regularly.
Ruby's Roadhouse
Two buildings from early jazz history still stand in Mandeville. Ruby's Roadhouse has been in continuous operation since the 1920s and is still a popular bar and live music venue today. The Dew Drop Dance Hall opened in January 1895. It closed with the onset of the Great Depression and was used only for storage for decades, preserving the dance hall unchanged from the early 20th century until it reopened in 2000 with live jazz as a protected historic landmark. (This was one of the earliest'Dew Drop's; dance halls across the South were similarly named, including the club in New Orleans where Little Richard got his start. )
In 1956, the first span of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opened to automobile traffic. A second span was added in 1969. The new road began the growth of Mandeville and the surrounding area as a suburban commuter community for people working in New Orleans. This trend increased in the 1980s and 1990s, bringing much growth to Mandeville, and bringing it more into the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area.