A visit to the Big Red Stick

On Wednesday we stopped for a visit in the state capital of Louisiana, Baton Rouge or translated Red Stick.  It was given this name by French explorer Sieur d’Iberville in 1699 when he saw a pole covered by bloody animals that marked the boundary between two Native American hunting grounds.

                                                

                                         This Red Stick memorial adorns the port of Baton Rouge.

It seems that Louisiana has a very colorful past when it comes to their politics and government. The state through its history was governed by France, Britain, Louisiana, the West Florida Republic, the Confederacy and the United States.

Our first stop was at the old capitol building, designed to look like a medieval castle.

       

The old capitol building is now a museum, replaced with a new capitol building in the 1930’s by Governor Huey P. Long.

Main staircase                                            top of the rotunda                                    second floor of the capitol.

Our next stop was the old Governor’s Mansion built by Huey Long.

                    

Does this look familiar? Huey Long found the best architect in Baton Rouge and told him he wanted him to design the Governor’s mansion. He pulled out a twenty dollar bill and said he wanted it to look like the building on the back of the bill (The White House). He said he wanted to be familiar with the house so when he became president he would feel at home. Huey did not suffer from poor self-esteem.

   This is the mural he put in the dining room of the mansion. It is hand woven and hand painted from France. Each strip is 18” wide and sells for $3000 a strip (It’s good to be king). Huey also wanted a new capitol building and he built the tallest capitol building in the world.

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Huey’s capitol over 30 stories tall                                                               Huey’s grave on the capitol lawn.

In 1932 while Huey was still governor, he ran for US Senate seat for the state of Louisiana and won. For two years he remained governor and senator. In 1934 the federal government  forced him to give up the governorship and just keep the job as senator.  In 1935 he announced that he was going to run for president against Roosevelt but before his campaign could take off he was shot in the lobby of the Louisiana state capitol and died two days later.  Who shot Huey is still a controversy!  Some say it was a Doctor who had a dispute with him, some say it was his body guards and some say it was a ricochet from one of the 61 bullets fired at the Doctor!

Our final stop was at the history of Louisiana Museum. We were running out of time but what we got to see was really interesting and well worth the stop.

  

Photos top L to R: Bond fire stack for Christmas eve to guide Papa Noel up the river, costume from a past Mardi Gras, and a tub of crayfish.

Bottom L to R: Confederate submarine found in Lake Pontchartrain, decorated lawn mowers used for Mardi Gras parades.

We would really like to come back to the Red Stick and see all the things we missed.