Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA

Notes:
Metairie Cemetery is located on a high section of ground known as the Metairie Ridge. The Ridge followed the course of Bayou Metairie, which is roughly the path of modern-day Metairie Road. Metairie Ridge was high ground, a rare commodity in the below-sea level areas away from the Mississippi River. In 1838, a group of investors chose this location to build a horse racing track and club, naming it the Metairie Race Course. The race track thrived in the antebellum decades. The track and clubhouse were on the western bank of the New Basin Canal, which connected Uptown with Lake Pontchartrain. New Orleans became the premier horse racing city in the country by the 1850s.

Racing stopped due to the Civil War, and the site turned into a Confederate Camp (Camp Moore) until 1862. After Admiral David Farragut and the Union Navy took possession of the city in 1862, the camp was abandoned. After the Civil War the track was bankrupt.