In the late nineteenth century, Loyola and Tulane universities (OR174 and OR175) purchased large tracts of land to construct new campuses facing St. Charles Avenue just upriver of the Uptown residential area and accessible by the streetcar line. Land opposite the universities had been acquired by 1886 for Audubon Park (OR179) and in 1883 the U.S. government had purchased a site close to the Mississippi River for a Marine Hospital (OR181). These institutions and the park generated residential development in this new highly desirable neighborhood.

Carrollton was developed on former plantation land acquired by the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company and subdivided by Charles F. Zimpel in 1833. Carrollton quickly became a popular resort with a hotel and a public garden, both now buried under a levee setback, as the attraction at the terminus of the streetcar line. The town was incorporated in 1845 and annexed to New Orleans in 1874. Carrollton was reputedly named for General William Carroll, who aided Andrew Jackson in the battle to defend New Orleans in 1815 (and who later became governor of Tennessee).