Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Jefferson, LA

Jefferson is a census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, on the East Bank of the Mississippi River immediately west of New Orleans.

Locals know the community as "Old Jefferson," a nickname distinguishing it from the rest of Jefferson Parish; it is a different place from the Old Jefferson CDP in East Baton Rouge Parish.

The 2020 United States census counted 10,633 people in Jefferson, continuing a long decline from 19,353 residents in 1960.

In the French and Spanish colonial eras, the area formed part of the Tchoupitoulas Coast and was divided into plantations laid out in long lots running back from the Mississippi River, one of which, Whitehall Plantation House, still survives.

During the Civil War, Confederate forces built Camp Parapet in present-day Jefferson to defend New Orleans from an upriver attack, and Union troops later expanded the fortifications against a counterattack that never came.

Jefferson grew out of several formerly separate 19th-century communities, including Hoeyville, New Carrollton, Southport, and Shrewsbury, whose names are still used locally.

The inauguration of the four-lane Jefferson Highway in 1928 accelerated Jefferson's development as a suburban area within Greater New Orleans.

A local plantation house became the Suburban Gardens roadhouse, where Louis Armstrong and his band held a summer residency in 1931, and in 1945 it was expanded into the Beverly Country Club, an opulent illegal gambling casino that later became a dinner theater before burning down in 1983.

Ochsner Medical Center, the flagship hospital and administrative headquarters of the Ochsner Health System, is located in Jefferson even though it carries a New Orleans mailing address.

Students in Jefferson are zoned to Jefferson K-8 School and Riverdale High School in the Jefferson Parish Public Schools system.