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Infirmary, National Leprosarium, Carville, Louisiana.
The infirmary, built in 1933, had 68 beds in two open wards--men upstairs and women downstairs. Architects provided screened porches across the front of the building to allow patients fresh air.…
Carville Patients' Cemetery, National Leprosarium.
The Carville cemetery is the only stop on the tour where you may exit your vehicle and take photographs. Just beyond the cemetery is a hospital incinerator with a driving ramp and tower built in…
Carville, The National Leprosarium: Patient Life
In 1940, the patient population was between 400 and 450 and a massive renovation was underway. The improved hospital created individual rooms for 450 patients and the 13” thick concrete walls made the…
Hansen's Disease
Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease (HD), is a chronic disease of the skin and peripheral nerves.
95% of the world’s population is naturally immune to the disease. Mycobacterium leprae, the…
Carville: Silos for Dairy Barn & Armadillo Research
The two silos and barns in front of you were built for a dairy herd in the 1920s. By the mid-1950s, an outside vendor was supplying milk to the Leprosarium and the barn fell into…
Indian Camp Plantation / Louisiana Leper Home
In the 1700s, Europeans settled this area known as Indian Camp and developed a plantation economy along the Mississippi River. Robert Camp, a planter from Virginia, began purchasing land here in the…
Carville Jail and Cottage Grove
Like any small town, Carville offered various services to its inhabitants. A one room school house educated the people quarantined at the site. Sacred Heart Chapel hosted Catholic services…
Big Chief Larry Bannock and the Battle of Gert Town
Big Chief Larry Bannock was celebrated for his traditional Mardi Gras Indian dancing and lavish costumes, but when he wasn't swaying his ostrich feathers or shaking a tambourine he was in constant…
Rosa Keller
Paper Monuments Poster #040: Rosa Keller worked tirelessly to address injustice, particularly among African-American residents of New Orleans following World War II.
St. Mary's Dominican High School
On November 5, 1860, seven Dominican sisters from Ireland came to New Orleans to teach the children of Irish immigrants. From 1860-1963, St. Mary’s Dominican High School had many different names and…
The Nix Family: Prominent Figures in the Carrollton Cemeteries
Born in South Carolina in 1852, Colonel James Thomas Nix (Col. Nix) was the son of Rev. John Darling Nix, lieutenant to General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War. Col. Nix was also the great-grandson…
The Boré Plantation: Sugar Production and its Impact on Slavery in the 19th Century
Today’s Audubon Park was once the location of the Boré Plantation. In the late eighteenth century, Étienne de Boré converted his plantation crop from indigo to sugar cane due to significant financial…
Sugar Granulation on the Boré Plantation
Antoine Morin, a free man of color, invented a sugar granulation process that launched the greed of Étienne de Boré and the intense labor demanded from enslaved people.
Audubon Park’s Enslavement History
Today, Audubon Park is a space dedicated to leisure in New Orleans. Every day, hundreds of New Orleans tourists and locals enjoy the public jogging path, lagoons, picnic shelters, golf course,…
The Christopher Inn: Soaked After the Second-Line
Sometimes referred to as the Patron Saint of Frenchmen Street and local style icon “Uncle” Lionel Batiste was a patriarch of the famed Treme Brass Band and one of the so-called “Benchmen of…
Henry Morton Stanley: Reborn in New Orleans
Journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who coined the now-famous phrase “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” during his travels, spent formative years in New Orleans. The origins of Henry Morton…
Naval Air Station & University of New Orleans
In the fall of 1940, the Navy began improving its primary flight training facilities by building up its system of Naval Reserve air bases, including New Orleans. The lakefront base housed a steel…
The Monteleone's Literary Legacy
Declared a national literary landmark by the Friends of the Library Association in 1999, Hotel Monteleone opened in 1886 when a Sicilian-born cobbler named Antonio Monteleone purchased the Commercial…
Club My-O-My: New Orleans Vintage Drag
Club My-O-My was a female impersonator club that originated and ended in the French Quarter. It flourished after first being kicked out of an informal, after-hours home in a fur warehouse in the Vieux…
Harmony Club
The Harmony Club of New Orleans was an elite men's social club. Though it was not completely sectarian, it was understood to be for the Jewish elite of the city. Founded in 1872, the club moved…
Lincoln Beach
Paper Monuments Project #020
La Village des Chapitoulas
Paper Monuments Project #014: La Village des Chapitoulas: When Frenchmen and Africans arrived in the bend of the Mississippi that would eventually be re-named New Orleans, they encountered a place…
Henriette Delille
Paper Monument Project #003: Henriette Delille, a free woman of color, founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1842. The sisters were devoted to the care of impoverished enslaved people and free…
Ridgewood Preparatory School
The Ridgewood Preparatory School for boys was founded in 1948 by Ottis O. Stuckey and Albert J. Kern. Its first campus was located at 221 North Line Avenue in Old Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans.…