5 Dollars New Orleans Canal and Banking Co.

The Canal and Banking Company was chartered in 1831 specifically to finance construction of the New Orleans Canal — a navigational cut intended to connect the city's back basin to Lake Pontchartrain. The bank outlived the canal's commercial relevance by decades, continuing to issue notes well past the point when its original infrastructure purpose had been largely superseded by rail. That longevity is unusual for a project-specific charter bank in antebellum Louisiana.

Louisiana's free banking laws and the disruptions of the Civil War and Reconstruction meant the company operated under radically different regulatory regimes across its lifespan. Notes from the later decades of the run are considerably scarcer than the antebellum issues.