Hammond Commercial Historic District

Hammond was founded in 1822 by Peter Ogden Hammond, a New York merchant who bought 800 acres of pine-forest land along the rail line connecting New Orleans to Jackson. What became the largest city in Tangipahoa Parish owes its commercial character to a wave of Italian immigrants — primarily Sicilian — who arrived in the late 19th century to work the strawberry fields and stayed to open grocery stores, bakeries, and restaurants. The four-block brick commercial core around Thomas and Charles Streets still holds the bones of that era. The Columbia Theatre anchors the east end; the farmers market, craft shops, and independent restaurants fill the middle; the Hammond Regional Arts Center occupies the former 1940 Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth library building.