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Bridge City Gumbo Festival: A Celebration of Food and Community
Once a year, the small community of Bridge City, Louisiana, welcomes locals and visitors to the Bridge City Gumbo Festival. Since the early 1970s, the festival has taken place on the second full…
Wharf Rats, the Plague, and Public Health
New Orleans has been a major port since the early 18th century. Until the 1960's, warehouses stood along this part of the river. These warehouses, or wharves, used to teem with the infamous "wharf…
Mosquitoes and Yellow Fever
As you stand in front of the fountain in Jackson Square or walk through the French Quarter peering into courtyards and hearing the faint trickle and splash of a fountain, think about the bugs that…
Mules and Modernization
Facing Jackson Square, one should see a line of mules and their drivers ready to take visitors on a trip around the French Quarter. Now a tourist attraction, these animals played a vital role for New…
Termites and Historic Preservation
While termites have lived and thrived in the world for over two hundred million years, the truly destructive subterranean Formosan termites did not arrive in New Orleans until after World War II,…
Congo Square/Armstrong Park
During 1977 and 1978, the University of New Orleans conducted an archaeological project within what is now Armstrong Park. It focused on two areas, the Jazz Complex, a small area around what had been…
Pitot House
The Pitot House was built in 1799 as a country home for Bartholemé Bosque. The Pitot House is named after James Pitot, who occupied the property from 1810 until 1819.
James Pitot was born in…
Evariste Blanc House
Evariste Blanc built the mansion you see before you around 1834. According to city directories, Evariste Blanc was a hardware merchant, ship chandler, and lime merchant. By 1834 Blanc also had a…
St. Louis Cemetery No. 3
An 1848 city legislature act allowed the Catholic wardens to establish a new cemetery. Land along Bayou St. John, purchased from Evariste Blanc for $15,000, became St. Louis Cemetery #3. The cemetery…
Cabrini High School
Cabrini High School was named for Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Mother Cabrini was born in Italy and traveled to New York to provide catechism…
The Geological Formation of the Metairie-Gentilly Ridges
The winding nature of the Mississippi not only gave New Orleans its nickname: the Crescent City but also created the land you are standing on today.
Magnolia Bridge
Magnolia Bridge was built in 1908, when Bayou St. John was still a commercial waterway. It is a Pratt Truss bridge that originally pivoted at the center to allow commercial vessels and barges to pass…
The Pythian Temple
Paper Monument Project #021: "The Eighth Wonder of the world is not located in the Orient, in the Occident, nor at the North Pole, but right in the city of New Orleans, in the prosperous State of…
General Beauregard Statue
The monument to Confederate General G.T. Beauregard stood at the center of a busy traffic roundabout at the entrance to City Park. In the aftermath of the Charleston massacre of 2015, all symbols…
Jefferson Davis Monument
Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, died in New Orleans, Louisiana on December 6, 1889. Residents hung black bunting from buildings along St. Charles…
Robert E. Lee Monument
The Lee Monument stood at the center of what was called “Lee Circle,” a busy traffic roundabout for streetcars and automobiles. In the aftermath of the Charleston massacre of 2015, all symbols…
Avondale Marine Ways, Inc.
Founded in 1938 as Avondale Marine Ways, Inc., Avondale Shipyard has long been a centerpiece of the economy of New Orleans and much of Southeast Louisiana. From barges to Navy warships, to the oil…
Avondale Save Our Shipyard Campaign
In July 2010, Avondale Shipyard owner Northrup-Grumman announced that Avondale would be closed by the end of the year, moving all operations to Pascagoula, Mississippi. In September 2010, the…
Zora Neale Hurston: Dust Tracks on the Road in Algiers, LA.
On August 6, 1928, Zora Neale Hurston wrote a letter from 7 Bellville Court, Algiers, Louisiana, to Langston Hughes in which she writes "I have landed in the kingdom of Marie Laveau and expect to wear…
Confetti Park: Where Imagination, Fun, and Magic Fill the Air
Confetti Park is a whimsical, magical playground for kids.
Landscape architect Christopher Friedrichs and sculptor Steve-Kline designed Confetti Park in 1996 on land that was a legacy of the…
African Presence in Algiers
On December 31, 2019, the Algiers Tricentennial Committee and the Algiers community of New Orleans dedicated this historic Middle Passage marker at what is now the Algiers Courthouse honoring those…
Trinity Lutheran Church
In the 1870s, Lutheran residents of Algiers met with pastors from three existing Lutheran churches in New Orleans, including St. Paul (established 1840), Zion (established 1847), and St John…
Claiborne Avenue
Claiborne Avenue, from Treme to the 7th Ward, is a corridor packed to the rafters with memory, resistance and a refusal to be assimilated, dominated and denigrated. It is rockin’ – from one side to…
Creation of the Eclipse Course: Horse Racing comes to New Orleans
As late as the 1830’s, the former French and Spanish colony of Louisiana still lagged far behind in the British sport of thoroughbred racing, which had been flourishing on the East Coast for the last…