Crescent City (New Orleans nickname)

New Orleans has been called the “Crescent City” since at least 1835. The “crescent” refers to the curve of the Mississippi River.
 
Joseph Holt Ingraham (1809-1860) probably popularized the term when he wrote in 1835: “I have termed New-Orleans the crescent city in one of my letters, from its being built around the segment of a circle formed by a graceful curve of the river at this place.”
 
“City of the Crescent” was printed in The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA) on September 18, 1839. The book The City of the Crescent: with pictures of harem life: or, The Turks in 1854 (1855), however, was about the Islamic crescent—a source of potential confusion.
 
“Crescent City” has also been the nickname of Evansville, Indiana, since the 1850s.
   
Other New Orleans nicknames include “America’s Most Interesting City,” “Baghdad-on-the-Bayou,” “Big Crescent,” “Big Easy,” “Big Greasy,” “Big Sleazy,” “Birthplace of Jazz,” “Chocolate City,” “Chopper City,” “City of a Million Dreams,” “City of Yes,” “City That Care Forgot,” “City That Forgot to Care,” “Convention City,” “Crawfish Town,” “Creole City,” “Erb City,” “Gateway of the Mississippi Valley,” “Gumbo City,” “Hollywood South,” “Jump City,” “Mardi Gras City,” “Metropolis of the South,” “N’Awlins,” “Necropolis of the South,” “Nerlins,” “No Orleans” (after Hurricane Katrina), “NOLA,” “Northernmost Banana Republic,” “Northernmost Caribbean City,” “Old Swampy,” “Paris of America,” “Queen City,” “Saint City,” “Silicon Bayou,” “Silicon Swamp” and “Sweet Lady Gumbo.”
   
   
Wikipedia: New Orleans
New Orleans (pronounced /nuː ˈɔrliənz/ or /nuː ɔrˈliːnz/, locally [nuː ˈɔrlənz] or [ˈnɔrlənz]; French: La Nouvelle-Orléans [la nuvɛl ɔʀleɑ̃] is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana.
 
The city is named after Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans, Regent of France, and is well known for its distinct Spanish architecture, as well as its cross cultural and multilingual heritage. New Orleans is also famous for its cuisine, music (particularly as the birthplace of jazz), and its annual celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras. The city is often referred to as the “most unique” city in America.
 
New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, straddling the Mississippi River. The boundaries of the city and Orleans Parish are coterminous. The city and parish are bounded by the parishes of St. Tammany to the north, St. Bernard to the east, Plaquemines to the south) and Jefferson to the south and west. Lake Pontchartrain, part of which is included in the city limits, lies to the north and Lake Borgne lies to the east.
(...)
Nickname(s): “The Crescent City”, “The Big Easy”, “The City That Care Forgot”, “Nawlins” and “NOLA” (acronym for New Orleans, Louisiana).
 
Wikipedia: Crescent City
Crescent City is the name of the following places in the United States:
 
. Crescent City, California
. Crescent City, Florida
. Crescent City, Illinois
 
Other uses:
 
. “The Crescent City”, a nickname for New Orleans, Louisiana
. Crescent City Records, a record label
   
Wikipedia: Joseph Holt Ingraham
Joseph Holt Ingraham (January 26, 1809 in Portland, Maine – December 18, 1860 in Holly Springs, Mississippi) was an American author.
 
Brief biography
Ingraham spent several years at sea, then worked as a teacher of languages in Mississippi. He became an Episcopal clergyman on March 7, 1852.
 
In Natchez, Ingraham married Mary Brooks, a cousin of Phillips Brooks.
 
Under the pen-name F. Clinton Barrington he wrote stories for popular publications like Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion.
   
Google Books
The Southwest
By Joseph Holt Ingraham, Yankee
New York, NY: Harper
1835
Pg. 87:
...—The Crescent city—...
Pg. 91:
From this highway streets shoot off at right angles, till they terminate in the swamp somewhat less than a league back from the river. I have termed New-Orleans the crescent city in one of my letters, from its being built around the segment of a circle formed by a graceful curve of the river at this place.
 
25 May 1836, Natchez (MS) Daily Courier, pg. 2, col. 1:
“IMPROVED” TOBACCO HOGSHEADS—We have heard much lately respecting the false packing of cotton, but we saw something the other day at the Exchange in New Orleans which we think rather went ahead of stone cotton. This was the “bottom head,” (as it was labelled,) of a tobacco hog-head returned from the same place to which it had been shipped from the “crescent city.”
 
28 July 1836, Boston (MA) Weekly Messenger, pg. 4, col. 2:
THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS—BY THE EDITOR OF THE NATCHEZ COURIER.
(...)
But what dry people they are in the Crescent city!—we do not mean droll people—but dry, thirsty.
   
3 October 1838, New Orleans (LA) Picayune, “Correspondence of the Picayune,” pg. 2:
Her numerous friends in the crescent city will doubtless be gratified with this intelligence.
     
18 September 1839, The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), pg. 2, col. 3:
[COMMUNICATED FOR THE PICAYUNE.]
Reminiscences of the Epidemic of 1839.
To the fact that the old inhabitants or the acclimated, or as some term them, the “Creoles,” of the beloved city of the Crescent, ... 
   
OCLC WorldCat record
The Crescent City.
Publisher: New Orleans [La.] : James O’Dowd & Co., 1840-
Edition/Format:   Newspaper : English
Subjects
New Orleans (La.)—Newspapers.
Louisiana—New Orleans.
 
Google Books
April 1843, Graham’s Magazine, “Mississippi,” pg. 215, col. 2:
Although my object is not to describe cities, yet New Orleans well deserves a passing notice. It lies on a bend of the river, and its poetical name is “The Crescent City.”
   
22 July 1843, The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), pg. 2, col. 2:
[CORRESPONDENCE OF THE PICAYUNE.]
BOSTON, July 10, 1843.
(...)
Made in her own likeness, as it were, we cannot wonder that the “City of the Crescent” (New Orleans—ed.) is her special favorite, no more that we can that the order of architecture in Bristles (not Brussels, but Cincinnati) is the Greasy-‘un.
     
OCLC WorldCat record 
The daily crescent.
Publisher: [New Orleans, Louisiana] : Hayes & M’Clure, 1848-1851.
Edition/Format:   eNewspaper : Document : English
Subjects
New Orleans (La.)—Newspapers.
Louisiana—New Orleans.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
New Orleans daily crescent.
Publisher: [New Orleans, La.] : J.H. Maddox, 1851-1866.
Edition/Format:   Newspaper : English
Subjects
New Orleans (La.)—Newspapers.
Louisiana—New Orleans.
 
Google Books
The Louisiana Book:
Selections from the Literature of the State
Edited by Thomas M’Caleb
New Orleans, LA: R. F. Straughan
1894
Pg. 347:
Fernand Torres had the freshest, pinkest complexion of any man in the great city of the Crescent, wherein those two natural enemies, trade and music, for three-quarters of a century, have worked together in the pleasantest of unions.