The heiress to the land around New Orleans's main square was shot four times by her father-in-law over her fortune, survived, and built the Pontalba Buildings

Andrés Almonester y Rojas, a notary on the Spanish governing council of New Orleans, acquired the land on both sides of the town square in 1777 and helped pay for the Cabildo, St. Louis Cathedral and the Presbytère. He died on 26 April 1798. His daughter Micaela, about two and a half, became sole heir. On 23 October 1811, at 15, she married her cousin Célestin Delfau de Pontalba in the cathedral, with a dowry of $40,000 plus jewels. The couple moved to the Pontalba château at Mont-l'Évêque in France. Two years after the wedding her father-in-law had her sign a power of attorney giving her husband control of her assets. Her mother died in 1825, and Micaela inherited the family estates. Her father-in-law wanted the Almonester fortune. On 19 October 1834 he shot her four times in the chest with dueling pistols. One bullet crushed her hand, and two fingers were mutilated. She survived. That evening he killed himself with the same pistols. After several lawsuits she won a legal separation and the return of her property; the couple never divorced. In 1849 she built the Upper and Lower Pontalba Buildings on the square, now Jackson Square. She built the Hôtel de Pontalba in Paris, now the US ambassador's residence, and died there on 20 April 1874. The family sold the Lower Pontalba in 1921 to William Ratcliffe Irby, who left it to the Louisiana State Museum in 1927.