Géraud Calixte Jean Baptiste Arsène Lacarrière Latour (1778–1837), architect and engineer, was born in Aurillac, France, where he apprenticed with a local architect beginning in 1799. He continued his studies in architecture and engineering at the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1801. The following year Latour departed for Saint Domingue in an unsuccessful attempt to lay claim to property that was part of his wife’s dowry. He served briefly in the French army’s Corps of Engineers before fleeing from Saint Domingue to the United States by 1804. The following year Latour was in New York City, working first as a trader and then as an architect. Early in 1806 he was in Louisiana, where he created a plan for the city of Baton Rouge, worked as a surveyor, and eventually started an architecture firm in New Orleans. In 1812 Latour became a United States citizen. After his business failed in 1813, he became a military engineer for Andrew Jackson in 1814 and made important contributions to the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans. Latour embarked with Jean Lafitte on a surveying and mapping expedition of the Southwest in 1816 as an agent of Spain, but he turned down an offer to serve as Spanish consul at New Orleans. From 1818 to 1834 he worked as an architect in Havana. Latour subsequently returned to France, where he died (Latour, Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814–15. With an Atlas. Expanded Edition, ed. Gene A. Smith [1999], ix–xlii; George W. Cullum, Campaigns of the War of 1812–15 … with Brief Biographies of the American Engineers [1879], 309–41; LNHiC: Latour Archive; New-York Evening Post, 8 Aug. 1805; Hispanic American Historical Review 18 [1938]: 221–7; Thomas L. Hodges and Charlotte Hodges, “Jean Lafitte and Major L. Latour in Arkansas Territory,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 7 [1948]: 237–56; Jackson, Papers description begins Sam B. Smith, Harold D. Moser, Daniel Feller, and others, eds., The Papers of Andrew Jackson, 1980– , 8 vols. description ends , vol. 3).