New Orleans' first food market was an informal open-air facility located on the levee in the area above the present-day Jackson Square. Around the year 1782 the Spanish erected the city's first market building on the corner of Chartres and Dumaine Streets and in 1790 relocated it to a site on what is now Decatur Street between St. Ann and Dumaine. A series of hurricanes destroyed several early structures at this location , but the building erected in 1813 as the Meat Market has survived to the present. It was built by Gurlie and Guillot based on designs drawn by the City Surveyor, Jacques Tanesse.

Several years later, in 1822, the new City Surveyor, Joseph Pilie, designed a building for use as a Vegetable Market. This building, which also remains standing, was constructed in two phases beginning in 1822 (by Jean Felix Pinson) and ending in 1830. Around the year 1833 several buildings, known collectively as the Red Stores, were put up in the space between the Vegetable Market and the levee. During the middle years of the century a bazaar-type market grew up between the Meat and Vegetable Markets. Around 1872 the city erected a new Bazaar Market facility to house this activity.

Beginning in the colonial period the city selected private contractors or farmers to collect market revenues. This contractor, usually chosen through a bid process, was authorized to collect specified fees from individual stall-holders in return for monthly payments to the city treasury. The city also established sanitary and other regulations to be enforced by the Market commissaries and other officials. At various times the city's markets came under the control of umbrella agencies such as the Department of Police and Public Buildings in 1883 and the Department of Public Property in 1912. By 1931 a separate Division of Public Markets was established within the Department of Public Property.

In 1932, however, the city proposed, through ordinance 18693 CCS, to negotiate a new franchise agreement for the operation and physical improvement of the French Market. Members of the French Market Business Men's Association responded to this proposal by organizing, on August 23, 1932, the French Market Corporation. The city, though ordinance 14182 in 1934, accepted the French Market Corporation's bid for the franchise and assigned to it the privilege of operating the Market. Records of the French Market Corporation are described separately.

By 1911, thirty-four municipally owned public markets had been built. The 1918 census reported that New Orleans had more operational public markets than any other city in the country. WPA funding assisted in the renovation and reimagination of many public markets in the 1930s, with some of the structures still standing today.