We live here, in Bayou St. John, a neighborhood drawing its name and identity from the historic waterway winding along its western edge. Our roots run deep, back to when the Choctaw knew this waterway as Bayouk Choupic, a vital path for trade and life long before Europeans arrived. "The portage road was the earliest path from the river to the lake and was used by the Native Americans before the French began exploring the area. With the coming of the French colonizers, it became the main road for bringing supplies and people to the new settlement on the Mississippi. During the late 1700′s and first half of the 1800′s, it became the fashionable road of the area, along which many lovely homes were built, most of them two-story plantation type homes." This area, along with Gentilly, is one of the earliest and most fashionable suburbs of New Orleans. The ancient connection to water, shaped through eras of French and Spanish settlement, Voodoo traditions near the "Wishing Spot," and the development of Faubourg St. John by planners like Barthelemy Lafon in the early 1800s, still defines us.