The State of Louisiana ( or , , pronounced ) is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. The capital of Louisiana is Baton Rouge and the most populous city is New Orleans. The largest parish by population is Jefferson Parish and largest by area is Terrebonne Parish (Louisiana is the only state divided into parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties). The New Orleans metropolitan area is Louisiana's largest.
Louisiana has a unique multicultural and multilingual heritage. Originally part of New France, Louisiana is home to many speakers of Cajun French and Louisiana Creole French. African American/Franco-African, and French/French Canadian form the two largest groups of ancestry in Louisiana's population.

Namesake

Louisiana (New France) was named after Louis XIV, king of France from 1643-1715. When René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory drained by the Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane, meaning "Land of Louis". Louisiana was once part of the Louisiana Territory which once stretched from present-day New Orleans to across the present day Canadian border. The territory was acquired in 1803 by the United States by way of the Louisiana Purchase. Part or all of 15 states were formed from the territory.
An alternative explanation of the name is that Louisiana is a combination of Louis XIV and his wife Anna of Austria. This, however, is false. While his mother was Anne of Austria, Louis XIV was married to Marie-Thérèse.

Geography

Topography

Louisiana is bordered to the west by the state of Texas; to the north by Arkansas; to the east by the state of Mississippi; and to the south by the Gulf of Mexico.
The surface of the state may properly be divided into two parts, the uplands and the alluvial, including coast and swamp regions. The alluvial regions, including the low swamps and coast lands, cover an area of about 20,000 square miles (52,000 km²); they lie principally along the Mississippi River, which traverses the state from north to south for a distance of about 600 miles (1,000 km) and ultimately empties into the Gulf of Mexico; the Red River; the Ouachita River and its branches; and other minor streams. The breadth of the alluvial region along the Mississippi is from 10 to 60 miles (15 to 100 km), and along the other rivers it averages about 10 miles (15 km). The Mississippi flows upon a ridge formed by its own deposits, from which the lands incline toward the low swamps beyond at an average fall of six feet per mile (3 m/km). The alluvial lands along other streams present very similar features.
The higher lands and contiguous hill lands of the north and northwestern part of the state have an area of more than 25,000 square miles (65,000 km²). They consist of prairie and woodlands. The elevations above sea-level range from 10 feet (3 m) at the coast and swamp lands to 50 and 60 feet (15–18 m) at the prairie and alluvial lands. In the uplands and hills the elevations rise to Driskill Mountain the highest point in the state at only 535 feet (163 m) above sea level. Only two other states in the union, Florida and Delaware, are geographically lower than Louisiana, though several other states, such as Kansas and Nebraska, are geographically flatter.
Besides the navigable rivers already named (some of which are called bayous), there are the Sabine (Sah-BEAN), forming the western boundary, and the Pearl, the eastern boundary, the Calcasieu (KAL-cah-shoe), the Mermentau, the Vermilion, the Teche, the Atchafalaya, the Boeuf (buff), the Lafourche (Luff-OOSH), the Courtableau, the D'Arbonne, the Macon, the Tensas (TEN-saw), the Amite, the Tchefuncte, the Tickfaw, the Natalbany, and a number of other streams of lesser note, constituting a natural system of navigable waterways, aggregating over in length, which is unequalled in the United States. The state also has 1,060 square miles (2,745 km²) of land-locked bays, 1,700 square miles (4,400 km²) of inland lakes, and a river surface of over 500 square miles (1,300 km²).

Climate

Louisiana has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen climate classification Cfa), perhaps the most "classic" example of a humid subtropical climate of all the Southeastern states, with long, hot, humid summers and short, mild winters. The subtropical characteristics of the state are due in large part to the influence of the Gulf of Mexico, which even at its farthest point is no more than 200 miles (320 km) away. Precipitation is frequent throughout the year, although the summer is slightly wetter than the rest of the year. There is a dip in precipitation in October. Southern Louisiana receives far more copious rainfall, especially during the winter months. Summers in Louisiana are hot and humid, with high temperatures from mid-June to mid-September averaging 90 °F (32 °C) or more and overnight lows averaging above 70 °F (22 °C). In the summer, the extreme maximum temperature is much warmer in the north than in the south, with temperatures near the Gulf of Mexico occasionally reaching 100 °F (38 °C), although temperatures above 95 °F (35 °C) are commonplace. In northern Louisiana, the temperatures reach above 105 °F (41 °C) in the summer.
Temperatures are generally mildly warm in the winter in the southern part of the state, with highs around New Orleans, Baton Rouge, the rest of south Louisiana, and the Gulf of Mexico averaging 66 °F (19 °C), while the northern part of the state is mildly cool in the winter with highs averaging 59 °F (15 °C). The overnight lows in the winter average well above freezing throughout the state, with 46 °F (8 °C) the average near the Gulf and an average low of 37 °F (3 °C) in the winter in the northern part of the state. Louisiana does have its share of cold fronts, which frequently drop the temperatures below 20 °F (-8 °C) in the northern part of the state, but almost never do so in the southern part of the state. Snow is not very common near the Gulf of Mexico, although those in the northern parts of the state can expect one to three snowfalls per year, with the frequency increasing northwards.
Louisiana is often affected by tropical cyclones and is very vulnerable to strikes by major hurricanes, particularly the lowlands around and in the New Orleans area. The unique geography of the region with the many bayous, marshes and inlets can make major hurricanes especially destructive. The area is also prone to frequent thunderstorms, especially in the summer. The entire state averages over 60 days of thunderstorms a year averaging more thunderstorms than any other state except Florida. Louisiana averages 27 tornadoes annually. The entire state is vulnerable to a tornado strike, with the extreme southern portion of the state slightly less than the rest of the state. Tornadoes are much more common from January to March in the southern part of the state, and from February through March in the northern part of the state.

Hurricanes

September 24, 2005, Rita (Category 3 at landfall) struck southwestern Louisiana, flooding many parishes and cities along the coast, including, Cameron Parish, Lake Charles, and other towns. The storm's winds further weakened the still damaged levees in New Orleans, re-flooding parts of the city.

August 29, 2005, Katrina (Category 4 at landfall) struck and devastated southeastern Louisiana, while damaged levees in New Orleans allowed parts of the city to flood. The city was virtually closed until October. It is estimated that more than two million people in the Gulf region were displaced by the hurricane, with more than 1,500 fatalities in Louisiana alone. Public outcry criticized the government at the local, state, and federal levels, citing that the response was neither fast nor adequate.

August 1992, Andrew (Category 3 at landfall) struck south-central Louisiana, killing four people, knocking out power to nearly 150,000 citizens and destroying hundreds of millions of dollars of crops in the state.

September 9, 1965, Betsy (Category 3 at landfall) came ashore in Louisiana causing massive destruction, being the first hurricane in history to cause one billion dollars in damage (over ten billion in inflation-adjusted USD). The storm hit New Orleans particularly hard by flooding approximately 35% of the city (including the Lower 9th Ward, Gentilly, and parts of Mid-City), pushing the death toll in the state to 76.

August 1969, Camille (Category 5) had a . storm surge and killed 250 people. Although Camille officially made landfall in Mississippi and the worst impacts were felt there, its effects were still felt in Louisiana. However, New Orleans was spared from the brunt of the storm and remained dry with the exception of some mild rain-generated flooding in only the extremely low-lying areas.

June 1957, Audrey (Category 4) devastated southwest Louisiana, destroying or severely damaging 60–80 percent of the homes and businesses from Cameron to Grand Chenier. 40,000 people were left homeless and over 300 people were killed in the state.

Geology

The underlying strata of the state are of Cretaceous age and are covered by alluvial deposits of Tertiary and post-Tertiary origin. A large part of Louisiana is the creation and product of the Mississippi River. It was originally covered by an arm of the sea, and has been built up by the silt carried down the valley by the great river.
Near the coast, there are many salt domes, where salt is mined and oil is often found.
Owing to the extensive flood control measures along the Mississippi river and to natural subsidence, Louisiana is now suffering the loss of coastal land area. State and federal government efforts to halt or reverse this phenomenon are under way; others are being sought. There is one bright spot, however, the Atchafalaya River is creating new delta land in the South-Central portion of the state.

Geographic and statistical areas

List of parishes in Louisiana

Louisiana census statistical areas

Louisiana metropolitan areas

List of cities, towns, and villages in Louisiana

Louisiana locations by per capita income

Louisiana is the only state in the US that has parishes instead of counties.

Protected areas

Louisiana contains a number of areas which are, in varying degrees, protected from human intervention. In addition to several stations of the National Park Service, and a federally recognized national forest, Louisiana itself operates, among other programs, a system of state parks and recreation areas throughout the state. Administered by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Louisiana Natural and Scenic Rivers System provides a degree of protection for 48 rivers, streams and bayous in the state.

National Park Service

Areas under the management and protection of the National Park Service include:

Cane River National Heritage Area near Natchitoches

Cane River Creole National Historical Park near Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, headquartered in New Orleans, with units in St. Bernard Parish, Barataria (Crown Point), and Acadiana (Lafayette)

New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park

Poverty Point National Monument at Epps, Louisiana.

Saline Bayou, a national wild and scenic river in northern Louisiana.

National Forest'''

Kisatchie National Forest is Louisiana's only national forest.

State parks and recreational areas

Louisiana operates a system of 19 state parks, 16 state historic sites and one state preservation area.

Transportation

United States highways

The Intracoastal Waterway is an important means of transporting commercial goods such as petroleum and petroleum products, agricultural produce, building materials and manufactured goods.

History

See main article: History of Louisiana

Early settlement

Louisiana was inhabited by Native Americans when European explorers arrived in the 17th century. Many place names in the state are transliterations of those used in Native American dialects. Among the tribes that inhabited what is now Louisiana included the Atakapa, the Opelousa, the Acolapissa, the Tangipahoa, the Chitimacha in the southeast of the state, the Washa, the Chawasha, the Yagenechito, the Bayougoula and the Houma (part of the Choctaw nation), the Quinipissa, the Okelousa, the Avoyel and the Taensa (part of the Natchez nation), the Tunica, and the Koroa. Central and northwest Louisiana was home to a substantial portion of the Caddo nation and the Natchitoches confederacy consisting of the Natchitoches, the Yatasi, the Nakasa, the Doustioni, the Quachita, and the Adai.

Exploration and colonization by Europeans

The first European explorers to visit Louisiana came in 1528. The Spanish expedition (led by Panfilo de Narváez) located the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1541, Hernando de Soto's expedition crossed the region.
Then Spanish interest in Louisiana lay dormant. In the late 17th century, French expeditions, which included sovereign, religious and commercial aims, established a foothold on the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast. With its first settlements, France lay claim to a vast region of North America and set out to establish a commercial empire and French nation stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.
The French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle named the region Louisiana to honor France's King Louis XIV in 1682. The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas (at what is now Ocean Springs, Mississippi, near Biloxi), was founded by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, a French military officer from Canada, in 1699.
The French colony of Louisiana originally claimed all the land on both sides of the Mississippi River and north to French territory in Canada.
The following States were part of Louisiana: Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota.
The settlement of Natchitoches (along the Red River in present-day northwest Louisiana) was established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, making it the oldest permanent European settlement in the Louisiana Purchase territory. The French settlement had two purposes: to establish trade with the Spanish in Texas, and to deter Spanish advances into Louisiana. Also, the northern terminus of the Old San Antonio Road (sometimes called El Camino Real, or Kings Highway) was at Nachitoches. The settlement soon became a flourishing river port and crossroads, giving rise to vast cotton kingdoms along the river. Over time, planters developed large plantations and built fine homes in a growing town, a pattern repeated in New Orleans and other places.
Louisiana's French settlements contributed to further exploration and outposts, concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries, from Louisiana to as far north as the region called the Illinois Country, around Peoria, Illinois and present-day St. Louis, Missouri. See also: French colonization of the Americas
Initially Mobile, Alabama and Biloxi, Mississippi functioned as the capital of the colony; recognizing the importance of the Mississippi River to trade and military interests, France made New Orleans the seat of civilian and military authority in 1722. From then until the Louisiana Purchase made the region part of the United States on December 20, 1803, France and Spain would trade control of the region's colonial empire.
In the 1720s, German immigrants settled along the Mississippi River in a region referred to as the German Coast.
Most of the territory to the east of the Mississippi was lost to the Kingdom of Great Britain in the French and Indian War, except for the area around New Orleans and the parishes around Lake Pontchartrain. The rest of Louisiana became a colony of Spain after the Seven Years' War by the Treaty of Paris of 1763.
During the period of Spanish rule, several thousand French-speaking refugees from the region of Acadia (now Nova Scotia, Canada) made their way to Louisiana following British expulsion; settling largely in the southwestern Louisiana region now called Acadiana. The Acadian refugees were welcomed by the Spanish, and descendants came to be called Cajuns.
Canary Islanders, called Isleños, migrated to Louisiana under the Spanish crown between 1778 and 1783.
In 1800, France's Napoleon Bonaparte acquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso, an arrangement kept secret for some two years.

Purchase by the United States

See main article: Louisiana Purchase

When the United States won its independence from Great Britain in 1783, one of its major concerns was having a European power on its western boundary, and the need for unrestricted access to the Mississippi River. As American settlers pushed west, they found that the Appalachian Mountains provided a barrier to shipping goods eastward. The easiest way to ship produce was to use a flatboat to float it down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the port of New Orleans, from where goods could be put on ocean-going vessels. The problem with this route was that the Spanish owned both sides of the Mississippi below Natchez. Napoleon's ambitions in Louisiana involved the creation of a new empire centered on the Caribbean sugar trade. By terms of the Treaty of Amiens of 1800, Great Britain returned ownership of the islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe to the French. Napoleon looked upon Louisiana as a depot for these sugar islands, and as a buffer to U.S. settlement. In October of 1801 he sent a large military force to retake the important island of Santo Domingo, lost in a slave revolt in the 1790s.
Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, was disturbed by Napoleon's plans to re-establish French colonies in America. With the possession of New Orleans, Napoleon could close the Mississippi to U.S. commerce at any time. Jefferson authorized Robert R. Livingston, U.S. Minister to France, to negotiate for the purchase of the City of New Orleans, portions of the east bank of the Mississippi, and free navigation of the river for U.S. commerce. Livingston was authorized to pay up to $2 million.
An official transfer of Louisiana to French ownership had not yet taken place, and Napoleon's deal with the Spanish was a poorly kept secret on the frontier. On October 18, 1802, however, a strange thing happened. Juan Ventura Morales, Acting Intendant of Louisiana, made public the intention of Spain to revoke the right of deposit at New Orleans for all cargo from the United States. The closure of this vital port to the United States caused anger and consternation, and commerce in the west was virtually blockaded. Historians believe that the revocation of the right of deposit was prompted by abuses of the Americans, particularly smuggling, and not by French intrigues as was believed at the time. President Jefferson ignored public pressure for war with France, and appointed James Monroe special envoy to Napoleon, to assist in obtaining New Orleans for the United States. Jefferson also raised the authorized expenditure to $10 million.
On April 11, 1803, Talleyrand, the French Foreign Minister, asked Robert Livingston how much the United States was prepared to pay for the entirety of Louisiana. Livingston was confused, as his instructions only covered the purchase of New Orleans and the immediate area, not the entire territory. James Monroe agreed with Livingston that Napoleon might withdraw this offer at any time. To wait for approval from President Jefferson might take months, so Livingston and Monroe decided to open negotiations immediately. By April 30, they closed a deal for the purchase of the entire Louisiana territory for 60 million Francs (approximately $15 million). Part of this sum was used to forgive debts owed by France to the United States. The payment was made in United States bonds, which Napoleon sold at face value to the Dutch firm of Hope and Company, and the British banking house of Baring, at a discount of 87 1/2 per each $100 unit. As a result, France received only $8,831,250 in cash for Louisiana. Dutiful banker Alexander Baring conferred with Marbois in Paris, shuttled to the United States to pick up the bonds, took them to Britain, and returned to France with the money - and Napoleon used these funds to wage war against Baring's own country.
When news of the purchase reached the United States, Jefferson was surprised. He had authorized the expenditure of $10 million for a port city, and instead received treaties committing the government to spend $15 million on a land package which would double the size of the country. Jefferson's political opponents in the Federalist Party argued that the Louisiana purchase was a worthless desert, and that the Constitution did not provide for the acquisition of new land or negotiating treaties without the consent of the Senate. What really worried the opposition was the new states which would inevitably be carved from the Louisiana territory, strengthening Western and Southern interests in Congress, and further reducing the influence of New England Federalists in national affairs. President Jefferson was an enthusiastic supporter of westward expansion, and held firm in his support for the treaty. Despite Federalist objections, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana treaty in the autumn of 1803.
A transfer ceremony was held in New Orleans on November 29, 1803. Since the Louisiana territory had never officially been turned over to the French, the Spanish took down their flag, and the French raised theirs. The following day, General James Wilkinson accepted possession of New Orleans for the United States. A similar ceremony was held in St. Louis on March 9, 1804, when a French tricolor was raised near the river, replacing the Spanish national flag. The following day, Captain Amos Stoddard of the First U.S. Artillery marched his troops into town and ran the stars and stripes up the fort's flagpole. The Louisiana territory was officially transferred to the United States government, represented by Meriwether Lewis.
The Louisiana Territory, purchased for less than 3 cents an acre, doubled the size of the United States literally overnight, without a war or the loss of a single American life, and set a precedent for the purchase of territory. It opened the way for the eventual expansion of the United States across the continent to the Pacific, and its consequent rise to the status of world power.

Law and government

In 1849, the state moved the capital from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Donaldsonville, Opelousas, and Shreveport have briefly served as the seat of Louisiana state government. The Louisiana State Capitol and the Louisiana Governor's Mansion are both located in Baton Rouge.
The current Louisiana governor is Bobby Jindal. The current U.S. senators are Mary Landrieu (Democrat) and David Vitter (Republican). Louisiana has seven congressional districts, represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by five Republican and two Democrats. Louisiana has nine votes in the Electoral College.

Civil Law

The Louisiana political and legal structure has maintained several elements from the time of French governance. One is the use of the term "parish" in place of "county" for administrative subdivision. Another is the legal system of civil law based on French, German and Spanish legal codes and ultimately Roman law - as opposed to English common law, which is "judge-made" law based on precedent, and is used in all other U.S. states. However, the type of civil law system Louisiana has is what the majority of nations in the world use, especially in Europe and its former colonies - excluding those that derive from the British Empire.
It is incorrect to equate the Louisiana Civil Code with the Napoleonic Code: although the Napoleonic Code strongly influenced Louisiana law, it was never in force in Louisiana, as it was enacted in 1804, after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. While the Louisiana Civil Code of 1870 has been continuously revised and updated since its enactment, it is still considered the controlling authority in the state.
Differences still exist between Louisianan civil law and the common law found in the other U.S. states. While some of these differences have been bridged due to the strong influence of common law in the United States it is important to note that the "civilian" tradition is still deeply rooted in most aspects of Louisiana private law. Thus property, contractual, business entities structure, much of civil procedure, and family law, as well as some aspects of criminal law, are still mostly based on traditional Roman legal thinking. Model Codes, such as the Uniform Commercial Code, which are adopted by most states within the union including Louisiana, are based on civilian thought, the essence being that it is deductive, as opposed to the common law which is inductive. In the civilian tradition the legislative body agrees a priori on the general principles to be followed, and when a set of facts are brought before a judge, he deduces the court's ruling by comparing the facts of the individual case to the law. In contrast, common law, which really does not exist in its pure historical form due to the advent of statutory law, was created by a judge applying other judges' decisions to a new fact pattern brought before him in a case. The result is that that historical English Judges' were not constrained by Legislative authority.

Marriage

In 1997, Louisiana became the first state to offer the option of a traditional marriage or a covenant marriage. In a covenant marriage, the couple waives their right to a "no-fault" divorce after six months of separation, which is available in a traditional marriage. To divorce under a covenant marriage, a couple must demonstrate cause.
Marriages between ascendants and descendants and marriages between collaterals within the fourth degree (i.e., siblings, aunt and nephew, uncle and niece, first cousins) are prohibited.
Same-sex marriages are prohibited.

Elections

Louisiana is unique among U.S. states in its method for state and local elections in using a system very similar to that of modern France. All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, run in a nonpartisan blanket primary (or "jungle primary") on Election Day (which is usually on a Saturday). If no candidate has more than 50% of the vote, the two candidates with the highest vote total compete in a runoff election approximately one month later. This runoff does not take into account party identification; therefore, it is not uncommon for a Democrat to be in a runoff with a fellow Democrat or a Republican to be in a runoff with a fellow Republican. All other states use single-party primaries followed by a general election between party candidates, each conducted by either a plurality voting system or runoff voting, to elect Senators, Representatives, and statewide officials. (Congressional races were previously held under the jungle primary system, but beginning in 2008 will be held under a closed primary system.)
Louisiana is one of only five states that elects its state officials in odd numbered years (The others are Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia). Louisiana holds elections for these offices every four years in the year preceding a Presidential election.
Louisiana is also one of 18 states which run separate elections for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, a process that has resulted in Governor-Lieutenant pairs from different parties and/or widely differing political ideologies. For example, current Governor Bobby Jindal is a Republican, while Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu is a Democrat.

Law Enforcement

Louisiana's statewide police force, the Louisiana State Police. It began in 1922 and its motto is "courtesy, loyalty, service." Its troopers have statewide jurisdiction with power to enforce all laws of the state, including city and parish ordinances. Each year, they patrol over 12 million miles (20 million km) of roadway and arrest about 10,000 impaired drivers. However, Orleans parish is the only parish in which troopers don't maintain primary patrol responsibility. New Orleans Police Dept. has immediate jursidition of Orleans parish. Troopers are also responsible for investigating the casino and gaming industry, all hazardous material incidents, anti-terrorism training and general criminal, narcotics and insurance fraud investigations.
Each parish in Louisiana has an elected sheriff, with the exception of Orleans Parish. It has two elected sheriffs - one criminal and one civil. The sheriffs are responsible for general law enforcement in their respective parish. Orleans Parish is also an exception to this rule, as here the general law enforcement duties fall to the New Orleans Police Department. The sheriff also controls and manages the parish jail and/or correctional facility. The sheriff is also the tax collector for each parish. In 2006 a bill was passed which will consolidate the two sheriffs' departments into one in 2010.
Most parishes are governed by a Police Jury. Eighteen of the sixty-four parishes are governed under an alternative form of government under a Home Rule Charter. They oversee the parish budget and operate the parish maintenance services. This includes parish road maintenance and other rural services.
See also List of law enforcement agencies in Louisiana

Education

Further information:

List of school districts in Louisiana

List of colleges and universities in Louisiana

French immersion in Louisiana

Sports teams

As of 2005 Louisiana is nominally the least populous state with more than one major professional sports league franchise: the National Basketball Association's New Orleans Hornets, the Arena Football League's New Orleans VooDoo, and the National Football League's New Orleans Saints. Louisiana also has a proportionally high number of collegiate NCAA Division I sports for its size; the state has no Division II teams and only one Division III team.
Further information

List of Louisiana sports teams

Culture

Louisiana is home to many, especially notable are the distinct culture of the Creoles and Cajuns.
Before the Louisiana Purchase occurred(1803), ancestors of Creoles came from France, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Canada, Germany, Spain, and questionably Senegal, settling along the major waterways in the State. The creative combination of these disparate groups with Native Americans was called "Creole" and continued as the dominant social, economic and political culture of Louisiana well into the 20th century. Some believe it has finally been overtaken by the American mainstream.
The ancestors of Cajuns also came from France and the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada. When the British won the French and Indian War, the British forcibly separated families and evicted them because of their long-stated political neutrality. Most captured Acadians were placed in internment camps in England and the New England colonies for 10 to 30 years. Many of those who escaped the British remained in French Canada. Once freed by England, many scattered, some to France, Canada, Mexico, the Falkland Islands. The majority found refuge in south Louisiana centered in the region around Lafayette and the LaFourche Bayou country. Until the 1970s, Cajuns were often considered lower class citizens with the term "Cajun" being derogatory. Once flush with oil and gas riches, Cajun culture, food, music and their infectious "joie de vivre" lifestyle quickly gained international acclaim.
A third distinct culture in Louisiana is that of the Isleños, who are descendants of Canary Islanders who migrated to Louisiana under the Spanish crown beginning in the mid-1770s. They settled in what is modern-day St. Bernard Parish, where the majority of the Isleno population is still concentrated today.

Languages

As of 2000, 91.2% of Louisiana residents age 5 and older speak English at home and 4.8% speak French. Spanish is spoken by 2.5% of the population, Vietnamese is spoken by 0.6% and German by 0.2%.
Among the states, Louisiana has a unique culture, owing to its Spanish and French colonial heritage. While the state has no declared "official language," its law recognizes both English and French.
There are several unique dialects of French, Creole and English spoken in Louisiana. First, there are three unique dialects of the French language: Cajun French, Colonial French, and Napoleonic French. For the Creole language, there is Louisiana Creole French as well as Haitian Creole. There are also two unique dialects of the English language: Cajun English, a French-influenced variety of English, and what is informally known as Yat, which resembles the New York City dialect, particularly that of historical Brooklyn, as both accents were influenced by large communities of immigrant Irish. Yat is the principal dialect of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area.

Religion

Like the other Southern states, Louisiana is mostly Protestant. Because of French Creoles, and later Irish and Italian immigrants, there is also a large native Catholic population in the state, particularly in the southern part of the state. Catholics have also traditionally been well represented in the politics. Most of the early governors were Catholic. in the era when the predominantly Catholic south had a greater population advantage over the mostly Protestant north. Despite no longer outnumbering Protestants, Catholics continue to play important roles in Louisiana's politics; for example as of 2007 both Senators and the Governor are Catholic. The importance of the Catholic population makes Louisiana unique among Southern states. The current religious affiliations of the people of Louisiana are shown in the table below:

Christian — 80%

Protestant — 50%

Baptist — 38%

Methodist — 4%

Pentecostal — 2%

Other Protestant – 16%

Roman Catholic — 30%

Other Christian — 1%

Other Religions — 10%

Non-Religious — 10%

A number of cities in Louisiana are also home to Jewish communities, notably Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. The most significant of these is the Jewish community of the New Orleans area, with a pre-Katrina population of about 12,000. The presence of a significant Jewish community already well established by the early 20th century also makes Louisiana unique among Southern states.

Music

See Music of Louisiana

Bibliography

Yiannopoulos, A.N., The Civil Codes of Louisiana (reprinted from Civil Law System: Louisiana and Comparative law, A Coursebook: Texts, Cases and Materials, 3d Edition; similar to version in preface to Louisiana Civil Code, ed. by Yiannopoulos)

Rodolfo Batiza, The Louisiana Civil Code of 1808: Its Actual Sources and Present Relevance, 46 TUL. L. REV. 4 (1971); Rodolfo Batiza, Sources of the Civil Code of 1808, Facts and Speculation: A Rejoinder, 46 TUL. L. REV. 628 (1972); Robert A. Pascal, Sources of the Digest of 1808: A Reply to Professor Batiza, 46 TUL. L. REV. 603 (1972); Joseph M. Sweeney, Tournament of Scholars Over the Sources of the Civil Code of 1808,46 TUL. L. REV. 585 (1972).

The standard history of the state, though only through the Civil War, is Charles Gayarré's History of Louisiana (various editions, culminating in 1866, 4 vols., with a posthumous and further expanded edition in 1885).

A number of accounts by 17th and 18th century French explorers, among whom the following at least should be cited: Jean-Bernard Bossu, François-Marie Perrin du Lac, Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix, Dumont (as published by Fr. Mascrier), Fr. Louis Hennepin, Lahontan, Louis Narcisse Baudry des Lozières, Jean-Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe, and Laval. In this group, the explorer Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz may be considered the first historian of Louisiana with his Histoire de la Louisiane (3 vols., Paris, 1758; 2 vols., London, 1763)

François Xavier Martin's History of Louisiana (2 vols., New Orleans, 1827–1829, later ed. by J. F. Condon, continued to 1861, New Orleans, 1882) is the first scholarly treatment of the subject, along with François Barbé-Marbois' Histoire de la Louisiane et de la cession de colonie par la France aux Etats-Unis (Paris, 1829; in English, Philadelphia, 1830).

Alcée Fortier's A History of Louisiana (N.Y., 4 vols., 1904) is the most recent of the large-scale scholarly histories of the state.

The official works of Albert Phelps and Grace King should also be mentioned among the more important, as well as the publications of the Louisiana Historical Society and several works on the history of New Orleans (q.v.), among them those by Henry Rightor and John Smith Kendall.

External links

Official State of Louisiana website

Census Statistics on Louisiana

USDA Louisiana Statistical Facts

USGS real-time, geographic, and other scientific resources of Louisiana

Louisiana Geographic Information Center

Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bordered on the south by the state of Mississippi and on the west by the river of the same name, the City on the Bluffs has long been spreading eastward, taking in more and more of Shelby County. Hot and humid in July and August, Memphis enjoys a mild climate the rest of the year.

Downtown Downtown Memphis grew from the warehouses that stored cotton and other goods shipped up and down the Mississippi River. For much of Memphis' history, this meant that the riverfront was just a place for commerce. Now, when you take a ride on the paddlewheel boats that run regular tours from the Memphis harbor, you can spot joggers on the Riverfront Walk, visitors on Mud Island and elegant homes along the bluffs (including Cybill Shepard's—look for the round window). Visitors can take a beautifully restored trolley car up Main Street—parallel to the River—and stop at the Pyramid arena, grab a bite and a brew in one of the Pinch Historic District pubs, loop back to the south to see the Orpheum Theatre and continue on down to the Civil Rights Museum , located in the old Lorraine Motel, site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. A ride up to Union Avenue and a walk two blocks east brings you to the Peabody Hotel , where the downtown comeback started. After a visit with the ducks in the lobby fountain, walk to the new Peabody Place entertainment center to see a movie, or visit the Center for Southern Folklore and learn more about local culture and history. Cross Union for some popcorn and crackerjacks while the Memphis Redbirds play baseball in Autozone Park .

Brought back from a downward spiral in the 1960s and 70s, Beale Street—"Home of the Blues"—now features lively bars, clubs, restaurants and souvenir shops. Closed to traffic on weekend evenings, the area teems with a mix of tourists, suburbanites, downtowners and kids turning flips for quarters. Here you can visit Elvis Presley's restaurant, with its souvenirs and videos of Memphis' favorite son. Visit B.B. King's Blues Club and the Hard Rock Café for music, food and dancing. More of Memphis' fabulous musical heritage can be soaked up at the original Sun Studio , just a short distance from Beale Street. This studio, made famous by Elvis Presley and B.B. King, still records major musical acts.

Victorian Village , situated on the east side of downtown, features homes built at the turn of the century, still standing in their original, tree-lined setting. Some of these homes offer public tours.

Midtown/Central The Midtown area stretches from I-240 on the west to the University of Memphis area on the east, and from Southern Avenue to Jackson Avenue. This lively neighborhood harbors beautifully restored residential areas, the city's highest concentration of ethnic restaurants, trendy clubs and live theater, along with some of the best places for antiques shopping.

At the heart of Midtown lies the Overton Square Entertainment Complex , home of Playhouse on the Square , the Malco Studio on the Square movie house and wine bar, Loony Bin Comedy Club, and a selection of restaurants and funky shops. To the north are the rolling lawns and shade trees of Overton Park , home of the Memphis Brooks Museum , the Overton Golf Course and the Memphis Zoo .

The Cooper-Young Historic District forms the south border of Midtown. Annual tours of this neighborhood and its fall festival show off the turn-of-century homes, which have been lovingly restored. The area supports some first-rate restaurants, too. Farther east is Pink Palace , which houses exhibits on natural history, the Sharpe Planetarium and an IMAX Theater .

University of Memphis Area The University of Memphis is largely a commuter campus, thus it has not developed the usual collection of businesses catering to students. Instead, the stretches of Highland and Park along the borders of the campus have an odd collection of bars and a Middle Eastern restaurant called Mo-Jo's, which looks like a fast food place, but isn't.

East In an area ranging roughly from just east of the University of Memphis to just outside the I-240 perimeter, East Memphis encompasses the Laurelwood Shopping Center , Oak Court Mall , and the Regalia Center at Poplar and Ridgeway, the best locations in Memphis for designer boutique shopping.

East Memphians have the Dixon Gallery and Gardens , which features a collection of Impressionist paintings and first-rate traveling exhibits. You will also find food to suit every palate and price.

North North Memphis is the kind of heterogeneous ethnic neighborhood common in cities such as Chicago and New York. With a recent influx of immigrants from Mexico, authentic taquerias and restaurants have sprung up on and near Jackson Avenue. Asian shops with exotic produce and merchandise are helping the area take on an appealing international flavor.

Graceland/Airport Mention Memphis in Paris, Beijing, or Budapest, and who comes to mind? Elvis Presley, of course. The King is more connected with his hometown than are most celebrities, and his home, Graceland , brings more visitors to Memphis from all over the world than any other single attraction in the area.

Germantown, Bartlett and Cordova While largely residential, Germantown brings in visitors for the international horse show. The area provides some excellent dining and shopping as well. Current favorite places to dine include the Greek/Mediterranean-inspired Yia Yia's Eurocafe and the country-club style Three Oaks Grill.

For shopping, Germantowners and East Memphians flock to the Shops of Saddle Creek and the smaller Carrefour , located at Kirby Woods. Bartlett and Cordova have Cordova Cellars , where visitors can taste local wines and learn about wine-making, and the Davies Manor Plantation , a restored log home from the 19th century. Many national chain restaurants and shops along with the Wolfchase Galleria shopping mall have made this area a major draw for out-of-towners.

E. Thrush

Mississippi is a state located in the Deep South of the United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The state's name comes from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, and takes its name from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River"). The state is heavily forested, and produces a majority of American catfish. Mississippi is also known for its state symbol, the Magnolia.

Geography

Mississippi is bordered on the north by Tennessee, on the east by Alabama, on the south by Louisiana and a narrow coast on the Gulf of Mexico, and on the west, across the Mississippi River, by Louisiana and Arkansas.
Major rivers in Mississippi, apart from its namesake, include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo, the Pascagoula, and the Tombigbee. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake and Grenada Lake.
The state of Mississippi is entirely composed of lowlands, the highest point being Woodall Mountain, in the the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, only 806 feet (246 m) above sea level. The lowest point is sea level at the Gulf coast. The Mean Elevation in the state is 300 feet (91 m) above sea level.
Most of Mississippi is part of the East Gulf Coastal Plain. The Coastal Plain is generally composed of low hills, such as the Pine Hills in the south and the North Central Hills. The Pontotoc Ridge and the Fall Line Hills in the northeast have somewhat higher elevations. Yellow-brown loess soil is found in the western parts of the state. The northeast is a region of fertile black earth that extends into the Alabama Black Belt.
The coastline includes large bays at Bay St. Louis, Biloxi and Pascagoula. It is separated from the Gulf of Mexico proper by the shallow Mississippi Sound, which is partially sheltered by Petit Bois Island, Horn Island, East and West Ship Islands, Deer Island, Round Island and Cat Island.
The northwest remainder of the state is made up of a section of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, also known as the Mississippi Delta. The Mississippi Alluvial Plain is narrow in the south and widens north of Vicksburg. The region has rich soil, partly made up of silt which had been regularly deposited by the floodwaters of the Mississippi River.
Areas under the management of the National Park Service include:

Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site near Baldwyn

Gulf Islands National Seashore

Natchez National Historical Park in Natchez

Natchez Trace Parkway

Tupelo National Battlefield in Tupelo

Vicksburg National Military Park and Cemtary in Vicksburg

Climate

Mississippi has a hot humid subtropical climate with long summers and short, mild winters. Temperatures average about 82 °F (about 28 °C) in July and about 48 °F (about 9 °C) in January. The temperature varies little statewide in the summer, but in winter the region near Mississippi Sound is significantly warmer than the inland portion of the state. The recorded temperature in Mississippi has ranged from -19 °F (-28.3 °C), in 1966, at Corinth in the northeast, to 115 °F (46.1 °C), in 1930, at Holly Springs in the north. Yearly precipitation generally increases from north to south, with the regions closer to the Gulf being the most humid. Thus, Clarksdale, in the northwest, gets about 50 inches (about 1,270 mm) of precipitation annually and Biloxi, in the south, about 61 inches (about 1,550 mm). Small amounts of snow fall in northern and central Mississippi, although snow is not unheard of around the southern part of the state.
In the late summer and the fall, the state (especially the southern part) is often affected by hurricanes moving north from the Gulf of Mexico, and occasionally impacted by major hurricanes, which can be quite devastating in coastal communities. Thunderstorms are common in Mississippi, especially in the southern part of the state. On average, Mississippi has around 27 tornadoes annually with the northern part of the state more vulnerable earlier in the year and the southern part more vulnerable later in the year.

Ecology

Mississippi is heavily forested, with over half of the state's area covered by wild trees; mostly pine, but also cottonwood, elm, hickory, oak, pecan, sweetgum and tupelo. Lumber is a prevalent industry in Mississippi.
Due to seasonal flooding possible from December to June, the Mississippi River created a fertile floodplain in what is called the Mississippi Delta, including tributaries. Early planters used slaves to build levees along the Mississippi River to divert flooding. They built on top of the natural levees that formed from dirt pushed up in flooding. As cultivation of cotton increased in the Delta, planters hired Irish laborers to ditch and drain their land. The state took over levee building from 1858-1861, accomplishing it through contractors. In those years planters considered their slaves too valuable to hire out for such dangerous work. Contractors hired gangs of Irish immigrant laborers to build levees and sometimes clear land. Before the war, the earthwork levees averaged six feet in height, although in some areas they reached twenty feet.
Flooding has been an integral part of Mississippi history. It took a toll during the years after the Civil War. Major floods swept down the valley in 1865, 1867, 1874 and 1882, regularly overwhelming levees damaged by Confederate and Union fighting during the war, and those repaired or constructed after the war. In 1877 the Mississippi Levee District was created for southern counties. In 1879 the US Congress created the Mississippi River Commission, whose responsibilities included aiding levee boards in the construction of levees. Both white and African-American transient workers built the levees in the late 19th century. By 1882 levees averaged seven feet in height, but many in the southern Delta were severely tested by the flood.
The levee system was expanded after the flood of 1882. By 1884 the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Levee District was established to oversee levee construction and maintenance in the northern Delta counties.
Flooding overwhelmed northwestern Mississippi in 1912-1913, causing heavy financial costs to the levee districts. Regional losses and the Mississippi River Levee Association's lobbying for a flood control bill helped gain passage of bills in 1917 and 1923 to provide Federal matching funds for local levee districts, on a scale of 2:1. Although US participation in World War I interrupted funding of levees, the second round of funding helped raise the average height of levees in the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta to 22 feet in the 1920s.
Nonetheless, the region was severely flooded and suffered millions of dollars in damages due to the Great Flood of 1927. Property, stock and crops were all lost. In Mississippi, most damage was in the lower Delta, including Washington and Bolivar counties.

History

Mississippi was part of the Mississippian culture in the early part of the 2nd millennium AD; descendant Native American tribes include the Chickasaw and Choctaw. Other tribes who inhabited the territory of Mississippi (and whose names became those of local towns) include the Natchez, the Yazoo, and the Biloxi.
The first major European expedition into the territory that became Mississippi was that of Hernando de Soto, who passed through in 1540. The first settlement was Fort Maurepas (also known as Old Biloxi) at Ocean Springs, settled by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in April 1699. In 1716, Natchez was founded on the Mississippi River (as Fort Rosalie); it became the dominant town and trading post of the area. After spending some time under Spanish, British, and French nominal jurisdiction, the Mississippi area was deeded to the British after the French and Indian War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763).
The Mississippi Territory was organized on April 7, 1798, from territory ceded by Georgia and South Carolina. It was later twice expanded to include disputed territory claimed by both the U.S. and Spain. Land was purchased (generally through unequal treaties) from Native American tribes from 1800 to about 1830.
Mississippi was the 20th state admitted to the Union, on December 10, 1817.
When cotton was king during the 1850s, Mississippi plantation owners - especially those of the Delta and Black Belt regions - became increasingly wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil, the high price of cotton on the international market, and their assets in slaves. The planters' dependence on hundreds of thousands of slaves for labor, and the severe wealth imbalances among whites played heavy roles in both state politics and in the support for secession. By 1860 the enslaved population numbered 436,631 or 55% of the state's total of 791,305. There were fewer than 1000 free people of color. The relatively low population of the state before the Civil War reflected the fact that much of the state was still wilderness and needed more settlers for development.
Mississippi was the second state to secede from the Union as one of the Confederate States of America on January 9, 1861. During the Civil War the Confederate States were defeated.
During Reconstruction the first constitutional convention in 1868 framed a constitution whose major elements would last for 22 years. The convention was the first political organization to include colored representatives, 17 among the 100 members. Although 32 counties had Negro majorities, they elected whites as well as Negroes to represent them. The convention adopted universal suffrage; did away with property qualifications for suffrage or for office, which benefited poor whites, too; provided for the state's first public school system; forbade race distinctions in the possession and inheritance of property; and prohibited limiting of civil rights in travel. Under the terms of Reconstruction, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union on February 23, 1870.
While Mississippi typified the Deep South in passing Jim Crow laws in the early 20th century, its history was more complex than just discrimination. Because the Mississippi Delta contained so much fertile bottomland which had not been farmed, after the Civil War African Americans achieved unusually high rates of land ownership in bottomland areas away from the riverfronts. Also, tens of thousands of immigrants were attracted to the Delta. In the 1870s and 1880s, many black farmers succeeded in gaining ownership of land.
By the turn of the century, two-thirds of the farmers (in numbers) in Mississippi who owned land in the Delta were African American and seemed headed for having a stake in the future. Their clearing and development of the land made it valuable. Many were able to keep going through the difficult years of falling cotton prices by extending their debts. Cotton prices fell throughout the decades following the Civil War. As another agricultural depression lowered cotton prices into the 1890s, however, numerous African American farmers finally had to sell their land to pay off debts and lost the land they had put so much labor into.
Disfranchisement of African Americans at the turn of the century, a series of increasingly restrictive racial segregation laws enacted during the first part of the 20th century, increased lynchings, failure of the cotton crops due to boll weevil infestation, and successive severe flooding in 1912 and 1913 resulted in thousands of African Americans leaving Mississippi to migrate north starting during World War I. With the Great Migration, they left a society that had been steadily closing off opportunity. With control of the ballot box and more access to credit, white planters expanded their ownership of Delta backcountry and could take advantage of new railroads. By 1910 a majority of black farmers in the Delta were sharecroppers, and by 1920, the third generation after freedom, African Americans were mostly landless laborers facing inescapable poverty.
Most migrants from Mississippi took the trains north to Chicago. Another wave of migration started in the 1940's. Almost half a million people left Mississippi in the second migration, three-quarters of them black.
Mississippi generated rich, quintessentially American music traditions: gospel music, country music, jazz, blues, and rock and roll, all were invented, promulgated, or heavily developed by Mississippi musicians, and most came from the Mississippi Delta. Many musicians carried their music north to Chicago, where it became part of that city's jazz and blues.
The state's complex history has generated great storytellers. Mississippi is noted for award-winning twentieth-century authors native to or associated with the state, including Nobel Prize-winner William Faulkner, playwright Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, Ellen Douglas, Walker Percy, Willie Morris, historian Shelby Foote, Margaret Walker, Ellen Gilchrist, Alice Walker, and playwright Beth Henley.
Mississippi was a center of activity during the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Students and community organizers from across the country came to help register voters and establish Freedom Schools. Resistance and harsh attitudes of many white politicians (including the creation of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission), the participation of Mississippians in the White Citizens' Councils, and the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan and its sympathizers, gained Mississippi a reputation in the 1960s as a reactionary state
In 1966 the state was the last to repeal prohibition of alcohol. In 1995 it symbolically adopted the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery. These amendments were still in effect in Mississippi even before their ratification there.
On August 17, 1969, Category 5 Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars). On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, though a Category 3 storm upon final landfall, caused even greater destruction across the entire of Mississippi Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama.
On August 30, 2007, a report by the United States Census Bureau indicated that Mississippi is the poorest state in the country. Many white cotton farmers have large, mechanized plantations, some of which receive extensive Federal subsidies, yet many African Americans still live as poor, rural, landless laborers. The state had a median household income of $34,473.

Law and government

As with all other U.S. states and the federal government, Mississippi's government is based on the separation of legislative, executive and judicial power. Executive authority in the state rests with the Governor, currently Haley Barbour (Republican). The Lieutenant Governor, currently Phil Bryant (Republican), is elected on a separate ballot. Both the governor and lieutenant governor are elected to four-year terms of office. Unlike the federal government, but like many other U.S. States, most of the heads of major executive departments are elected by the citizens of Mississippi rather than appointed by the governor.
Mississippi is one of only five states that elects its state officials in odd numbered years (The others are Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Virginia). Mississippi holds elections for these offices every four years in the years preceding Presidential election years. Thus, the last year when Mississippi elected a Governor was 2007, and the next gubernatorial election will occur in 2011.
(See: List of Governors of Mississippi)
(See: List of Lieutenant Governors of Mississippi)
(See: List of State Treasurers of Mississippi)
(See: List of Attorneys-General of Mississippi)
(See: Mississippi general election, 2007)
Legislative authority resides in the state legislature, composed of the Senate and House of Representatives. The lieutenant governor presides over the Senate, while the House of Representatives selects their own Speaker. The state constitution permits the legislature to establish by law the number of senators and representatives, up to a maximum of 52 senators and 122 representatives. Current state law sets the number of senators at 52 and representatives at 122. The term of office for senators and representatives is four years.
(See: List of U.S. state legislatures.)

Judicial branch

Supreme judicial authority rests with the state Supreme Court, which has statewide authority. In addition, there is a statewide Court of Appeals, as well as Circuit Courts, Chancery Courts and Justice Courts, which have more limited geographical jurisdiction. The nine judges of the Supreme Court are elected from three districts (three judges per district) by the state's citizens in non-partisan elections to eight-year staggered terms. The ten judges of the Court of Appeals are elected from five districts (two judges per district) for eight-year staggered terms. Judges for the smaller courts are elected to four-year terms by the state's citizens who live within that court's jurisdiction.

Federal representation

Mississippi has two U.S. senator seats. One is currently held by Thad Cochran (Republican) and the other is held by Roger Wicker (Republican) as he was appointed on December 31, 2007 by Mississippi governor Haley Barbour due to Trent Lott resigning on December 18, 2007. Wicker will serve until an election is held for the remainder of Lott's unexpired term (see United States Senate special election in Mississippi, 2008).
As of the 2001 apportionment, the state has four congressmen in the U.S. House of Representatives, currently Chip Pickering (Republican), Bennie Thompson (Democrat), Gene Taylor (Democrat), and an open seat that was held by Roger Wicker before his appointment to the Senate (see Mississippi's 1st congressional district special election, 2008).
(See: List of United States Representatives from Mississippi; Congressional districts map)

Politics

Federal politics

Mississippi, like the rest of the South, long supported the Democratic Party. The policies of Reconstruction, which included federally appointed Republican governors, led to white Southern resentment toward the Republican Party. Following the Compromise of 1877, federal troops enforcing the provisions of Reconstruction were pulled out of the South. The Democratic Party regained political control of the state, using methods designed to suppress black voter turnout, which had understandably favored Republican candidates. In 1890 the Mississippi legislature was the first in the South to use a grandfather clause law to prevent freedmen from voting. After the law was declared unconstitutional, the state passed bills requiring voters to pay a poll tax and pass literacy tests as created by local boards. By 1900 these measures effectively disfranchised the vast majority of African Americans in the state. Not until 1966, following the passage of the Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, would most African American men, and by then women, have the chance to vote.
For 116 years (from 1876 to 1992), Mississippians only elected Democratic governors. Over the same period, the Democratic Party dominated state and federal elections in Mississippi. However, since the 1960s the Republican Party has become competitive in statewide elections. In recent years, it has become dominant in the state's federal elections, carrying the state's electoral votes in every election since 1980. Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic nominee to win in Mississippi, when he narrowly carried the state in 1976 by only two percentage points. Mississippi has elected Republican nominees 9 out of 11 times in presidential elections since 1964.
Mississippi will host its first ever presidential debate when the party nominees face off on the University of Mississippi campus September 26, 2008.
Mississippi's presidential caucus takes place March 11, 2008.

State politics

Mississippi has 82 counties. Citizens of Mississippi counties elect the members of their county Board of Supervisors from single-member districts, as well as other county officials.
(See: List of counties in Mississippi)
On some social issues, Mississippi is one of the more conservative states in the US, with religion often playing a large role in citizens' political views. Liquor laws are particularly strict and variable from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Liquor sales are frequently banned on Sunday. Many cities and counties allow no alcoholic beverage sales ("dry"), while others allow beer but not liquor, or liquor but not beer. Some allow beer sales, but only if it is not refrigerated. In 2001, Mississippi banned adoption by same-sex couples and banned recognition of adoptions by same-sex couples which were done and recognized in other states or countries. In 2004, 86% of voter turnout amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage and ban state recognition of same-sex marriages which were done and recognized in other states and countries. At the same time, Mississippi has been one of the more innovative states in the country, having been the first state to implement a sales tax and the first state to pass a Married Women's Property Act. Also, Mississippi has more African American elected officials than any other state in the United States. Mississippi is one of only a few states to have decriminalized the possession of marijuana to a degree in that possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana is punishable by a fine of $100 - $250 for the first offense with no jail time

Major cities and towns

Mississippi City Population Rankings (United States Census Bureau estimates as of 2005)
1. Jackson, Mississippi (177,977)
2. Gulfport, Mississippi (72,464)
3. Biloxi, Mississippi (50,209)
4. Hattiesburg, Mississippi (47,176)
5. Meridian, Mississippi (39,968)
6. Southaven, Mississippi (38,840)
7. Greenville, Mississippi (38,724)
8. Tupelo, Mississippi (35,930)
9. Olive Branch, Mississippi (27,964)
10. Vicksburg, Mississippi (25,740)

11. Clinton, Mississippi (24,425)

12. Pascagoula, Mississippi (23,719)

13. Columbus, Mississippi (21,000)

(See: List of cities in Mississippi)
(See: List of towns and villages in Mississippi)
(See: List of census-designated places in Mississippi)
(See: List of metropolitan areas in Mississippi)
(See: List of micropolitan areas in Mississippi)

Education

Until the Civil War era, Mississippi had only a small number of schools and no educational institutions for blacks. The first school for blacks was established in 1862.
During Reconstruction in 1870, black and white Republicans were the first to establish a system of public education in the state. The state's dependence on agriculture and resistance to taxation limited the funds it had available to spend on any schools. As late as the early 20th century, there were few schools in rural areas. With seed money from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, many rural communities across Mississippi raised matching funds and contributed public funds to build new schools for African-American children, under the management of white school boards. Essentially, many African Americans taxed themselves twice and made significant sacrifices to raise money for the education of their children.James D. Anderson,The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1988, pp.160-161
Blacks and whites attended separate public schools in Mississippi until the 1960s, when they began to be integrated following a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional. Population settlement patterns have resulted in many districts that are de facto segregated.
In the late 1980s, the state had 954 public elementary and secondary schools, with a total yearly enrollment of about 369,500 elementary pupils and about 132,500 secondary students. Some 45,700 students attended private schools. In 2004, Mississippi was ranked last among the fifty states in academic achievement by the American Legislative Exchange Council's Report Card on Education, with the lowest average ACT scores and spending per pupil in the nation.
In 2007, Mississippi students scored the lowest of any state on the National Assessments of Educational Progress in both math and science.

Colleges, universities and community colleges

(see: List of colleges and universities in Mississippi)

Music History

Mississippi has been historically significant in the development of the blues, especially the Delta region. Mississippi blues greats include: Bo Carter, Son House, Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters, Skip James, Bukka White, Tommy Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Willie Brown, Big Joe Williams, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Big Bill Broonzy, Jimmy Rogers, Bo Diddley, Otis Rush, Otis Spann, and B. B. King.
Jimmie Rodgers, a white guitarist/singer/songwriter, known as the "Godfather of Country," also played a significant role in the development of the blues. He and Chester Arthur Burnett were friends and admirers of each other's music. Rodgers was supposed to have given Burnett his nickname of Howlin' Wolf. This friendship and respect is an important example of Mississippi's musical legacy. While the state has had a reputation for being the most racist in America, it also played a significant role in the integration of American music. Its musicians created a creolization by combining musical traditions from Africa with the musical traditions of white Southerners, a tradition largely rooted in Celtic music.
The Mississippi Blues Trail, now being implemented, has dedicated markers for historic sites, such as Clarksdale's Riverside Hotel, where Bessie Smith died after her auto accident on Highway 61. The Riverside Hotel is just one of many historical blues sites in Clarksdale. Located in Clarksdale, the Delta Blues Museum is visited by people from all over the world. Close by are Ground Zero and Madidi, a blues club and restaurants co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman.
Mississippi has been fundamental to the development of American music has a whole. Elvis Presley was a native of Tupelo, Mississippi. While its origins were based more in Tennessee than Mississippi, country music had its first superstar in Jimmie Rodgers, a native of Meridian. From the famous alternative rock band 3 Doors Down to famous gulf and western singer Jimmy Buffett, Mississippi has had a long and proud music history.
(see: List of people from Mississippi)

Professional sports

Biloxi is home to one of two Mississippi-based professional ice hockey teams, the Mississippi Sea Wolves. The Sea Wolves are a minor league team based at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. The ECHL's 1998-1999 Kelly Cup Champions return to the ice for the 2007-2008 season after a two-year hiatus due to Hurricane Katrina damage in 2005 at the Coliseum.

Southaven, Mississippi hosts the Mississippi RiverKings of the CHL, who changed their name from the Memphis Riverkings after an online fan vote to select a new team name.

Famous Mississippians

Mississippi has produced a number of notable and famous individuals. From actors Jim Henson, Oprah Winfrey, Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones, Gerald McRaney, Parker Posey and Sela Ward to National Football League greats Archie Manning, Brett Favre, Jerry Rice, Walter Payton, Deuce McAllister, and Steve McNair to authors William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, John Grisham, Richard Ford, Willie Morris, Bill Fitzhugh, Beth Henley and Richard Wright to singers Elvis Presley, Faith Hill, LeAnn Rimes, Brandy (entertainer), and Bo Diddley to business leaders Jim Barksdale (founder of Netscape) and Robert "Bob" Pittman (founder and former President and CEO of MTV). Actors, artists, astronauts, authors, cooks, musicians, sports figures and more, Mississippi has contributed significantly to America's culture.
(see: List of people from Mississippi)

Miscellaneous topics

Children in the United States often count "One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi" during informal games such as hide and seek to approximate counting by seconds.
The Teddy bear gets its name from a 1902 hunting trip to Sharkey County, Mississippi by President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt in which he refused to shoot a captured bear.
In 1936 Dr. Leslie Rush, of Rush Hospital in Meridian, Mississippi performed the first bone pinning in the United States. This led to the development of the "Rush Pin", which is still in use to this day.
The first woman to be a judge of a U.S. district court was Burnita Shelton Matthews of the Burnell community near Hazlehurst, Mississippi. She was appointed by Harry S. Truman on October 21, 1949.
The first human lung transplant was performed in 1963 by Dr. James D. Hardy of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1964, Dr. Hardy performed the first heart transplant, transplanting the heart of a chimpanzee into a human, with some success. The heart continued to beat for 90 minutes.
Former astronaut and administrator of NASA Richard H. Truly is from Fayette, Mississippi. Educated in Mississippi and Georgia, Truly was in charge of reforming NASA (1989 to 1992) in the era immediately following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. He was the first former astronaut to head NASA.
The world-renowned USA International Ballet Competition takes place in Jackson every four years.
Root beer was invented in Biloxi in 1898 by Edward Adolf Barq, the namesake of Barq's Root Beer.
The pledge to the State of Mississippi flag: "I salute the flag of Mississippi and the sovereign state for which it stands with pride in her history and achievements and with confidence in her future under the guidance of Almighty God."
Several warships have been named USS Mississippi in honor of this state.
Starkville is home to the state's first and oldest independent film festival, The Magnolia Independent Film Festival, which takes place each February.

External links

State of Mississippi

Mississippi Travel and Tourism

The "Mississippi Believe It" Campaign

Mississippi State Facts

University Press of Mississippi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Baton Rouge (French: Bâton Rouge in English, and in French) is the capital and the second largest city in Louisiana behind New Orleans. The effects of Hurricane Katrina have reduced the population of Orleans Parish such that East Baton Rouge Parish is currently more highly populated than Orleans Parish. Baton Rouge serves as the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish. In June 2005 East Baton Rouge Parish contained 412,000 residents. The Greater Baton Rouge population is approximately 700,000.
Baton Rouge is located in the southeast portion of the state along the Mississippi River. It owes its location and its historical importance to its site upon Istrouma Bluff, the first bluff upriver from the Mississippi delta, which protects the city’s 224,097 residents from flooding and other natural disasters. In addition to the natural protection, the city sports a levee system stretching from the bluff southward to protect the riverfront and the southern agricultural areas.
Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, and port center of the American South. The Port of Baton Rouge is the tenth largest in the United States in terms of weight.
The Baton Rouge region, like that of other capital cities in the United States, is called the "Capital Area."

History

French period (1699-1763)

The French words bâton rouge mean "red stick" in English. In 1699, French explorer Sieur d'Iberville led an exploration party of about 200 up the Mississippi River. On March 17, on a bluff on the east bank of the river (on what is now the campus of Southern University), they saw a reddish cypress pole festooned with bloody animal and fish heads, which they learned was a boundary marker between the hunting territories of the Bayougoula and the Houma tribes (the Bayougoula village was situated near the present-day town of Bayou Goula, LA; the Houma village was believed to be situated near the site of what is now Angola, LA). The French term survives.

British period (1763-1779)

On Feb. 10, 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed, where by France gave all its territory in North America to Britain and Spain. Spain ended up with New Orleans and all land west of the Mississippi. Britain ended up with all land east of the Mississippi, except for New Orleans. Baton Rouge, now part of the newly-created British colony of West Florida, suddenly had strategic significance as the southwest-most corner of British North America.
The British built Fort New Richmond just south of the eventual site of the LSU campus Pentagon Barracks (in downtown Baton Rouge), and began plans for the development of a town. Land grants were given, resulting in an influx of the first settlers.
When the older British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America rebelled in 1776, the newer colony of West Florida, lacking a history of local government and distrustful of the potentially hostile Spanish nearby, remained loyal to the British crown.
In 1778, France declared war on Britain, and in 1779, Spain followed suit. That same year, Spanish Governor Don Bernardo de Galvez and his militia of about 1,400 men from New Orleans conquered Fort New Richmond. The fort was renamed Fort San Carlos. Once the Spanish controlled Baton Rouge, they ordered its inhabitants to declare their allegiance to Spain or leave. Most residents reluctantly stayed. Galvez subsequently captured Mobile in 1780 and Pensacola in 1781, thus ending the British presence on the Gulf Coast.

Spanish period (1779-1810)

A colony of Pennsylvania German farmers settled to the south of town, having moved north to high ground from their original settlement on Bayou Manchac after a series of floods in the 1780s. They were known locally as "Dutch Highlanders" ("Dutch" being a corruption of the German "Deutsch") and today’s Highland Road cuts through their original indigo and cotton plantations. The two major roads off of Highland Road, Essen Lane and Siegen Lane were both named after cities in Germany. The Kleinpeter and Staring families (which Staring Lane is named after) have been prominent in Baton Rouge affairs ever since.
In 1800, the Tessier-Lafayette buildings were built on what is now Lafayette Street. The buildings are still standing today.
In 1805, the Spanish administrator, Don Carlos Louis Boucher de Grand Pré, commissioned a layout for what is today know as Spanish Town.
In 1806, Elias Beauregard led a planning commission for what is today known as Beauregard Town.

The Republic of West Florida (1810)

As a result of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Spanish West Florida found itself almost entirely surrounded by the United States and its possessions. The Spanish Fort at Baton Rouge became the only non-American post on the Mississippi River.
Several of the inhabitants of West Florida began to have conventions to plan a rebellion, among them Fulwar Skipwith, a Baton Rouge native. At least one of these conventions was held in a house on a street in the city that has since been renamed Convention St. (in honor of the rebel conventions). On September 23, 1810, the rebels overcame the Spanish garrison at Baton Rouge, and unfurled the flag of the new Republic of West Florida, known as the Bonnie Blue Flag. The flag had a single white star on a blue field. The Bonnie Blue Flag also inspired the Lone Star flag of Texas.
The West Florida Republic existed for only seventy-four days, during which St. Francisville served as its capital.
Seizing upon the opportunity, President James Madison ordered W.C.C. Claiborne to move north and seize the fledgling republic for incorporation into the Territory of Orleans. Madison used the premise that the territory had always been a part of the U.S., citing the terms of the Louisiana Purchase, an explanation largely believed to be a deliberate error. The rebels were largely composed of American settlers, and they provided no resistance. With minor resentment, the stars and stripes were raised on December 10, 1810.
For the first time, all of the land that would become the State of Louisiana now lay within U.S. borders.

Since Louisiana statehood (1812-1860)

In 1812, Louisiana was admitted to the Union as a State. Baton Rouge's location continued to be a strategic military outpost. Between 1819 and 1822, the U.S. Army built the Pentagon Barracks, which became a major command post up through the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Taylor, supervised construction of the Pentagon Barracks and served as its commander. In the 1830s, what is known today as the "Old Arsenal" was built. The unique structure originally served as a powder magazine for the U.S. Army Post.
In 1825, Baton Rouge was visited by the Marquis de Lafayette as part of his triumphal tour of the United States, and he was the guest of honor at a town ball and banquet. To celebrate the occasion, the town renamed Second Street as Lafayette Street.
In 1846, the Louisiana state legislature in New Orleans decided to move the seat of government to Baton Rouge. As in many states, representatives from other parts of Louisiana feared a concentration of power in the state's largest city. In 1840, New Orleans' population was around 102,000, fourth largest in the U.S. The 1840 population of Baton Rouge, on the other hand, was only 2,269.
New York architect James Dakin was hired to design the new Capital building in Baton Rouge, and rather than mimic the federal Capitol Building in Washington, as so many other states had done, he conceived a Neo-Gothic medieval castle overlooking the Mississippi, complete with turrets and crenelations. In 1859, the Capitol was featured and favorably described in DeBow's Review, the most prestigious periodical in the antebellum South. Mark Twain, however, as a steamboat pilot in the 1850s, loathed the sight of it, "It is pathetic ... that a whitewashed castle, with turrets and things ... should ever have been built in this otherwise honorable place." (Life on the Mississippi, Chapter 40)
Despite his view of the Capitol, Twain was fond of Baton Rouge, "Baton Rouge was clothed in flowers, like a bride — no, much more so; like a greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now — no modifications, no compromises, no half-way measures. The magnolia trees in the Capitol grounds were lovely and fragrant, with their dense rich foliage and huge snowball blossoms....We were certainly in the South at last; for here the sugar region begins, and the plantations — vast green levels, with sugar-mill and negro quarters clustered together in the middle distance — were in view." (Life on the Mississippi, Chapter 40)

The Civil War (1860-1865)

Southern secession was triggered by the 1860 election of Republican Abraham Lincoln because slave states feared that he would make good on his promise to stop the expansion of slavery and would thus put it on a course toward extinction. Many Southerners thought that even if Lincoln did not abolish slavery, sooner or later another Northerner would do so, and that it was thus time to leave the Union.
In January 1861, Louisiana elected delegates to a state convention to decide the state's course of action. The convention voted for secession 112 to 17. Baton Rouge raised a number of volunteer companies for Confederate service, including the Pelican Rifles, the Delta Rifles, the Creole Guards, and the Baton Rouge Fencibles (about one-third of the town's male population eventually volunteered).
The Confederates gave up Baton Rouge (which only had a population of 5,429 in 1860) without a fight, deciding to consolidate their forces elsewhere. In May 1862, Union troops entered the city and began the occupation of Baton Rouge. The Confederates only made one attempt to retake Baton Rouge. The Confederates lost the battle and the town was severely damaged. However, Baton Rouge escaped the level of devastation faced by cities that were major conflict points during the Civil War, and the city still has many structures that predate it.
In 1886, a statue of a Confederate soldier was dedicated to the memory of those who fought in the Civil War on the corner of Third Street and North Blvd.

Late 19th and early 20th centuries

The mass migration of ex-slaves into urban areas in the South also affected Baton Rouge. It has been estimated that in 1860, blacks made up just under one-third of the town's population. By the 1880 U.S. census, however, Baton Rouge was 60 percent black. Not until the 1920 census would the white population of Baton Rouge again exceed 50 percent. After the end of Reconstruction the white population regained control of the state's and the city's institutions, and segregation and "Jim Crow" laws were enforced, though leavened with a dose of paternalism (Radical Republican control in Louisiana had never been strong outside of New Orleans in any case).
By 1880, Baton Rouge was recovering economically and psychologically, though the population that year still was only 7,197 and its boundaries had remained the same. The carpetbaggers and scalawags of Reconstruction politics were replaced by middle-class white Democrats who loathed the Republicans, eulogized the Confederacy, and preached white supremacy. This "Bourbon" era was short-lived in Baton Rouge, however, replaced by a more management-oriented local style of conservatism in the 1890s and on into the early 20th century. Increased civic-mindedness and the arrival of the Louisville, New Orleans, and Texas Railroad led to the development of more forward-looking leadership, which included the construction of a new waterworks, widespread electrification of homes and businesses, and the passage of several large bond issues for the construction of public buildings, new schools, paving of streets, drainage and sewer improvements, and the establishment of a scientific municipal public health department.
At the same time, the state government was constructing in Baton Rouge a new Institute for the Blind and a School for the Deaf. LSU moved from Pineville to temporary quarters at the old arsenal and barracks and Southern University relocated from New Orleans to Scotlandville (just north of Baton Rouge at the time but now within the city limits). Finally, legal challenges to the Standard Oil Company in Texas led its board of directors to move its refining operations in 1909 to the banks of the Mississippi just above town; Exxon is still the largest private employer in Baton Rouge.
In the 1930s, the new Louisiana State Capitol building was built under the direction of Huey P. Long, and became the tallest capitol building in the United States. The old state capitol is now a museum.
In the late 1940s, Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish became a consolidated city/parish with a mayor/president in its government. It was also one of the first cities in the nation to consolidate, and the parish surrounds three incorporated cities: Baker, Zachary, and Central.

2000s

In the 2000s, Baton Rouge has proven to be one of the fastest growing cities in the South, not so much in population but in technology.
Baton Rouge is well wired, and ranks

19 as one of the most wired cities (more wired than New Orleans, and most of the 25 largest cities in the United States)

There are now many sky-eye traffic cameras at major intersections and countless other advances. Although, Baton Rouge's city population was not growing fast, it has overtaken Mobile, Alabama, Shreveport, and many other currently declining cities. After the 2000 census, Baton Rouge had a slight decline in population, with 224,000 from recent estimates. This is attributed by some to white flight.
Baton Rouge was rated one of the largest mid-sized business cities, after Hurricane Katrina. It was also one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the U.S. (under 1 million), with 600,000 in 2000 and 700,000 since 2000. Aside from politics, there is also a vibrant mix of cultures found throughout Louisiana, thus forming the basis of the city motto: "Authentic Louisiana at every turn".

Hurricane Katrina

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast with failed levees flooding much of New Orleans and areas of Mississippi. Although the damage was relatively minor compared to New Orleans (generally light to moderate except for fallen trees), Baton Rouge experienced power outages and service disruptions due to the hurricane. In addition, the city provided refuge for residents from New Orleans. Baton Rouge served as a headquarters for Federal (on site) and State emergency coordination and disaster relief in Louisiana.
The city executed massive rescue efforts for those who evacuated the New Orleans area. Schools and convention centers such as the Baton Rouge River Center opened their doors to evacuees. LSU's basketball arena, the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, and the adjacent LSU Field House were converted into emergency hospitals. Victims were flown in by helicopter (landing in the LSU Track Stadium) and brought by the hundreds in buses to be treated. Here patients were triaged and, depending on their status, were either treated immediately or transported further west to Lafayette, Louisiana. As a result of this the LSU football team was forced to play their originally home scheduled game against Arizona State in Arizona.
As a result, by August 31, TV station WAFB had reported that the city's population had more than doubled from about 228,000 to at least 450,000 and East Baton Rouge Parish's population shot up to almost 600,000 since the mandatory evacuation had been issued. That day, Mayor-President Kip Holden was expected to host a conference to discuss how to effectively enroll evacuated children into the East Baton Rouge Parish public school system. During late 2005 and half of 2006 traffic in the city was more congested to the point of hours long stand stills since the evacuation of the Gulf South but since then traffic is on somewhat normal levels for a parish that had 412,000 pre-Katrina residents.

Crime

With the exception of murder, all other major crimes reported to Baton Rouge police in 2007 were down compared with 2006, according to statistics released in January 2008. Compared with 2006, the number of major crimes in 2007 dropped 8 percent, statistics show. Crimes against people — murder, rape, robbery and assault — fell 12 percent compared with 2006. Crimes against property — burglary, larceny, arson and motor vehicle theft — declined 7 percent. The number of people killed each year in the city between 2000 and 2006 has ranged from 41 to 58 but murder rose 29 percent from 56 in 2006 to 72 last year. The number of murders in 2007 is two shy of a 1993 high of 74.

Geography and climate

Baton Rouge is located at (30.458090, -91.140229).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 79.1 square miles (204.8 km²), of which, 76.8 square miles (199.0 km²) of it is land and 2.2 square miles (5.7 km²) of it (2.81%) is water.
Baton Rouge along with Tallahassee, FL and Austin, TX is one of the southernmost capital cities in the lower 48 U.S

Climate

Baton Rouge is humid-subtropical, with mild, short, wet, and somewhat warm winters and long, hot, humid, wet summers.

Disasters

Baton Rouge rarely suffers from natural disasters. Earthquakes are very rare (unlike farther north up the Mississippi River). The Mississippi River poses little threat to the highly populated sections of the city because Baton Rouge is built on natural bluffs at higher elevations than the river. However, the outlying areas near the Amite and Comite rivers are very easily flooded if already saturated by previous precipitation. Baton Rouge rarely sees tornadoes and storm surges are impossible because of its distance inland.
While hurricanes often affect the area, they rarely hit Baton Rouge at their full force due to the inland location. Instead, due to the projection of the Louisiana peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico, storms tend to hit that part of the state then steer northward. Storms that head on a more westerly route tend to upswing sharply, angling more toward the western coastal areas, from Morgan City to the Acadiana parishes. The last hurricane to threaten the city with a direct hit was Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which missed the city and took a direct path through the Atchafalaya Basin, some forty miles west of the city. Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita in 2005 followed this pattern as well, with Katrina veering east to New Orleans and eastward and Rita striking the Lake Charles, Louisiana area and the state's western border with Texas.

Tallest buildings

Baton Rouge currently has several towers in the works. One project includes a 17 story office, another a 30+ story condominium tower to be the first towers built downtown in two decades.

Baton Rouge Buildings

Baton Rouge and Environs

Neighborhoods and suburbs

Downtown - Baton Rouge's central business district.

Spanish Town - Located between the Mississippi River and I-110, it is one of the city's more diverse neighborhoods and home to the State Capitol Building and the city's largest Mardi Gras Parade.

Beauregard Town - A historic district between the downtown area and Old South Baton Rouge. Many of the homes have been renovated and are used as law offices.

Garden District - The Garden District is located in Baton Rouge's Mid-City area where Park Boulevard intersects Government Street. The Garden District is an established historic area with many upscale homes.

Old South Baton Rouge - An old section of the city directly south of downtown and Beauregard Town, it stretches south from I-10 and along the river to Brightside Lane. After years of neglect and a crumbling infrastructure, the city is targeting the neighborhood in the city's largest ever revitalization project.

LSU/Lakeshore - Home to LSU's main campus, the University Lakes and the City Park lake. It includes neighborhoods like University Hills, University Gardens, College Town, State Street, Carlotta Street, and Arlington. Homes directly on the lakeshore are some of the most expensive within the city limits, and the lakeshore itself is a popular place for jogging, walking and bicycling.

Mid-City - Bound by I-110 on the west, College and N. Foster on the east, Choctaw to the north and I-10 to the south. It includes several neighborhoods like Ogden Park, Bernard Terrace, and Capital Heights. Always a socially and economically diverse area, Mid City is quickly regaining popularity due to urban renewal and gentrification. Includes historic Baton Rouge Magnet High School.

Brookstown - Is bordered by Airline Highway to the east, Hollywood St to the north, McClelland St to the west and Evangeline St to the south.

Melrose Place - Melrose Place is home to BRCC and is between N. Ardenwood and N. Foster Rd.

Melrose Place East/Mall City - Is bordered by Florida Blvd (US 190) to the south, Greenwell Springs Rd to the north, Airline Highway to the east, and N. Ardenwood Dr to the west. However the border is traditionally between Mall at Cortana and the old Bon Marche Mall.

Inniswold - Area around Bluebonnet Rd between Jefferson Hwy and I-10.

Goodwood - an older subdivision located between Government Street, Jefferson Highway, Airline Highway, and Old Hammond Highway.

Southdowns - an older subdivision located between Perkins Road and Bayou Duplantier, also between the University Lake and Pollard Estates. Hosts one of Baton Rouge's Mardi Gras parades, on the Friday night before Mardi Gras.

Gardere - an area using Gardere Lane (LA Highway 327 Spur) as its main artery. Found between Nicholson Drive and Highland Road, located near St. Jude the Apostle Church. Dominated by low-rent housing prior to Hurricane Katrina.

Westminster - Between Essen and Bluebonnet off Jefferson Highway, around the Baton Rouge Country Club.

Oak Hills Place -Bordered by Bluebonnet Boulevard to the west, Perkins Road to the north, and Highland Road to the south. South of the Mall of Louisiana.

Broadmoor - A mostly mid-century neighborhood founded in 1950

Scotlandville - The largest section of north Baton Rouge. The area is bounded by Plank Road to the east, Thomas Road to the north, the Mississippi river to the west, and Airline Hwy to the south, and surrounds the Southern University campus and the Exxon chemical plants.

Shenandoah - A very large subdivision built in the 1970s and 1980's, located between South Harrell's Ferry and Tiger Bend Roads with its westernmost boundary Jones Creek Road. Schools in this subdivision include: Shenandoah Elementary and St. Michael the Archangel.

Shenandoah North - A small subdivision, built in the late 1980s, located off the north end of Jones Creek Road.

Sherwood Forest - A large, established neighborhood with large, older homes. Located just east of "Broadmoor." Sherwood Forest Blvd. is to the south, Flannery Rd. is to the east, Florida Blvd. is to the north, and Sharp Rd. is to the west.

Village St. George - located off Siegen Lane near the Mall of Louisiana. Named after nearby St. George Catholic Church.

Brownfields - located near Baker off Committee Drive and bounded between Foster Road and Plank Road.

Zion City - Between Hooper Road and Airline Highway.

Monticello - located off Greenwell Springs Road between the Baton Rouge City Limits and Central City, site of Greenbriar Elementary School.

Glen Oaks - located in northern Baton Rouge between Mickens Road and Airline Highway, site of Glen Oaks High School.

Old Jefferson - located off Jefferson Highway near Antioch and Tiger Bend Roads. Site of Most Blessed Sacrament School and Woodlawn High School.

University Club - A newer neighborhood built inside the University Club Golf course located off of Nicholson Drive on the south edge of Baton Rouge.

Points of Interest

Alex Box Stadium - Baseball stadium for LSU.

Baton Rouge River Center - Entertainment complex.

Baton Rouge Zoo - BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo is home to over 1,800 animals from around the world. The Baton Rouge Zoo was the first zoo in Louisiana to achieve the distinguished honor of being accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

Blue Bayou Waterpark - Blue Bayou has over 20 water rides. Favorites are the "Mad Moccasin," "Conja" and "Racers."

BREC, LSU, BRAS Highland Road Observatory - An astronomical observatory for education and recreation that provides regular events open to the public.

Dixie Landin' Amusement Park - Dixie Landin' contains 26 rides, 10 games and more. Contains such rides as the "Ragin' Cajun," "Flyin' Tigers," "Gilbeau's Galaxi" and "The Glimmer."

Capitol Lakes - located north of the State Capitol.

City Park Golf Course - Baton Rouge's first public golf course.

F.G. Clark Center - basketball arena for Southern University.

The Herbarium of LSU

Huey Long Field House - one-time student union for LSU. When built, it featured the largest indoor swimming pool in the country at that time.

Independence Park Botanic Gardens - Includes a rose garden, crape myrtle garden, sensory garden, children's forest, and Louisiana iris garden.

Memorial Stadium - 21,395-seat football stadium. Was built in 1956 in memory of the men and women who fought and served Baton Rouge during the two World Wars and the Korean War.

Laurens Henry Cohn, Sr Memorial Plant Arboretum - contains more than 120 species of trees and shrubs on 16 acres.

Louisiana Arts and Science Museum - Contains art and science galleries, an Ancient Egypt Gallery, and simulated space travel in the Challenger Learning Center. LASM is also home to the Irene W. Pennington Planetarium and ExxonMobil Space Theater, which offers planetarium shows and large-format films.

Louisiana Museum of Natural History - Contains two main exhibit areas, one in the Textile and Costume Museum, the other in the Museum of Natural Science.

Louisiana State Capitol - tallest state capitol building in the United States.

LSU - One of only thirteen American universities designated as a land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant research center.

LSU Museum of Art - located within the Shaw Center for the Arts. LSU MOA's permanent collection consists of about 4,000 objects with an emphasis placed on American, British, and, in particular, Louisiana art.

LSU Museum of Natural Science - Was founded in 1936. Is one of the nation's largest natural history museums, with holdings of over 2.5 million specimens. As the only comprehensive research museum in the south-central United States, the LSU Museum of Natural Science fulfills a variety of scientific and educational roles.

LSU Rural Life Museum - Commemorates the contributions made by Baton Rouge's various cultural groups through interpretive programs and events throughout the year.

LSU University Lakes

Magnolia Mound Plantation House - Built c. 1791. Is a rare survivor of the vernacular architecture influenced by early settlers from France and the West Indies.

Mall at Cortana - Known as Cortana Mall until the opening of the Mall of Louisiana, this shopping center contains Dillards, Sears, JCPenney, Macy's, and over 110 specialty stores and services.

Mall of Louisiana - Contains Dillards, Sears, JCPenney, and Macy's. Has over 160 stores and services. It will soon incorporate 11 upscale stores, as well as four additional restaurants.

Mount Hope Plantation

The Old Arsenal Powder Magazine - Is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Was built around 1838.

Old State Capitol - Louisiana's Old State Capitol Center for Political and Governmental History houses several interactive state-of-the-art exhibits including "Huey Long Live! The Kingfish Speaks", "We The People," "The Governor Huey P. Long Assassination Exhibit" and more.

Pennington Biomedical Research Center - The largest academically based nutrition research center in the world.

Perkins Rowe - An urban village with residences, theaters, restaurants, and specialty shops.

Pete Maravich Assembly Center - The "PMAC" is a 13,472-seat multi-purpose arena. The arena opened in 1972, and is home to the LSU Tigers and Lady Tigers basketball teams, volleyball team and gymnastics team. It was originally known as the "LSU Assembly Center," but was renamed in memory of Pete Maravich, a Tiger basketball legend, shortly after his death in 1988.

Poplar Grove Plantation - Began life not as a home but as the Bankers' Pavilion at the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition of 1884 in New Orleans. The exposition was held at what is today Audubon Park in uptown New Orleans. Was moved upriver on a barge in 1886 and became the home of sugar planter Horace Wilkinson and his wife, Julia.

Shaw Center for the Arts - Performing-art venue and fine arts museum located at 100 Lafayette Street downtown.

Southern University - one of the most well known historically black colleges and universities.

Tiger Stadium LSU football stadium.

USS Kidd - a Fletcher class destroyer, was the 1st ship of the United States Navy to be named for Rear Adm. Isaac C. Kidd, Commander of Battleship Division 1, who died on the bridge of his flagship USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Media

Greater Baton Rouge is well served by television and radio. The market is the 94th largest Designated Market Area (DMA) in the United States, serving 317,550 homes or 0.282% of the U.S. population.

Television

Major television network affiliates serving the area include:

2 WBRZ (ABC)

9 WAFB (CBS)

21 WBRL (The CW)

27 WLPB (PBS)

33 WVLA (NBC)

39 WBXH (MyNetworkTV)

44 WGMB (FOX)

KPBN 11, KZUP 19, and WBTR 41 also operate as independent stations in the area, along with WLFT 30 providing mainly religious programming. Other cable-only stations include: Metro 21, Cox 4, and Catholic Life Channel 15.

Periodicals

The major daily newspaper is The Advocate, publishing since 1925. Prior to October 1991, Baton Rouge also had an evening newspaper, The State-Times -- at that time, the morning paper was known as "The Morning Advocate." Other publications include: 225, LSU Daily Reveille, Tiger Weekly, Southern University Digest, Greater Baton Rouge Business Report, and the South Baton Rouge Journal. Other newspapers in East Baton Rouge Parish include the Central City News and the Zachary Post.

Radio

College: KLSU-FM (91.1)

Country: WYPY-FM (100.7), WYNK-FM (101.5), WTGE-FM (107.3)

Contemporary: WQCK-FM (92.7)

Gospel/Christian: WJFM-FM (88.5), WPAE-FM (89.7), KPAE-FM (91.5),WTQT-LP (94.9), WXOK-AM (1460), WPFC-AM (1550)

Hits: KRDJ-FM (93.7), WFMF-FM (102.5), WCDV-FM (103.3)

Jazz: WBRH-FM (90.3)

Oldies: KBRH-AM (1260)

Public Radio: WRKF-FM (89.3)

Rock: KRVE-FM (96.1), WDGL-FM (98.1), WNXX-FM (104.5), KNXX-FM (104.9), KYRK-FM (104.1)

Sports: WSKR-AM (1210), WIBR-AM (1300)

Talk: WJBO-AM (1150), WPYR-AM (1380)

Urban/Urban Contemporary: WEMX-FM (94.1), KQXL-FM (106.5)

Variety: KKAY-AM (1590)

Education

Primary and secondary schools

Public schools

East Baton Rouge Parish Public Schools, the city's school district, is one of the area's largest school districts. Baton Rouge school district is one of the largest low performing school district in Louisiana. It contains approximately 90 individual schools: 56 elementary schools, 16 middle schools, and 18 high schools.
Louisiana State University operates the Louisiana State University Laboratory School, a K-12 school.
The state of Louisiana directly operates two special schools for children with disabilities:

Louisiana School for the Deaf

Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired

Private Schools

Parkview Baptist School

University Laboratory School (LSU)

Southern University Laboratory School

St. Joseph's Academy

The Dunham School

Redemptorist High School

Episcopal High School

Catholic High School

St. Michael the Archangel High School (formerly Bishop Sullivan High school)

Baton Rouge Christian Classical School

Runnels School

Most Blessed Sacrament School

St. Thomas More School

St. Jude the Apostle School

Sacred Heart of Jesus School

St. Louis King of France School

Our Lady of Mercy School

St. Jean Vianney School

St. George School

St. Aloysius School

Gables Academy

St. Luke's Episcopal Day School

Christian Life Academy

Cypress Heights Academy

Colleges and Universities

Louisiana State University

Southern University

Baton Rouge Community College

Our Lady of the Lake College

Baton Rouge General Medical Center School of Nursing

Baton Rouge General Medical Center School of Radiologic Technology

Louisiana Technical College (Baton Rouge campus)

Louisiana Tech University

Louisiana Culinary Institute

ITI Technical College

University of Phoenix (Baton Rouge campus)

Infrastucture

Health and Medicine

Baton Rouge is served by a number of hospitals and clinics:

Baton Rouge Clinic - 7373 Perkins Road

Baton Rouge General Medical Center Mid-City - 3600 Florida Boulevard

Baton Rouge General Medical Center Bluebonnet - 8585 Picardy Avenue

Benton Rehabilitation Hospital - 7660 Convention Street

Earl K. Long Medical Center (LSUMC) - 5825 Airline Highway

HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital - 8595 United Plaza Boulevard

HealthSouth Surgi-Center - 5222 Brittany Drive

Lane Memorial Hospital – Zachary, Louisiana.

Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Treatment Center - 4950 Essen Lane

Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center - 5000 Hennessy Boulevard

Ochsner Medical Center - 1700 Medical Center Drive

Sage Integra Hospital Baton Rouge, a rehabilitation hospital - 8225 Summa Avenue

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital - 7777 Hennessy Boulevard

Surgical Specialty Centre 8080 Bluebonnet Blvd

Vista Surgical Hospital - 9032 Perkins Road

Womans Hospital - 9050 Airline Highway

Utilities

Electricity services for Baton Rouge are provided by Entergy, and DEMCO. Waste pickup is provided by Allied Waste Services, formally BFI.

National Guard

Baton Rouge is home station to the 769th Engineer Battalion a units that has recently had units deployed to Iraq and Afganistan. The armory located near the Baton Rouge Airport houses three company sized units. These are: 769th HSC (headquarters support company); 769th FSC (forward support company); and the 927th Sapper Company. Other units of the battalion are located at Napoleonville (928th Sapper Company); Baker, Louisiana (926th MAC mobility augmentation company); and Gonzales, Louisiana (922nd Horizontal Construction Company).
The 769th Engineer Battalion is part of the 225th Engineer Brigade which is headquatered in Pineville, Louisiana at Camp Beauregard. There are four engineer battalions and an independent bridging company in the 225th Engineer Brigade which makes it the largest engineer group in the US Army Engineer Corps.

Notable inhabitants, past and present

Sports figures

Seimone Augustus, WNBA guard for the Minnesota Lynx (b. 1984)

Brandon Bass, NBA Power Forward for the Dallas Mavericks (b. 1985)

Billy Cannon, former All-American and 1959 Heisman Trophy winner (b. 1937)

Michael Clayton, NFL wide receiver for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (b. 1982)

Glen Davis, forward for the Boston Celtics

David Dellucci, MLB outfielder for the Cleveland Indians (b. 1973)

Warrick Dunn, NFL running back for the Atlanta Falcons (b. 1975)

Chad Durbin, MLB pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies (b. 1977)

Alan Faneca, NFL guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers (b. 1976)

Randall Gay, NFL cornerback for the New England Patriots (b. 1982)

Darryl Hamilton, MLB outfielder for various clubs (b. 1964)

Fred Haynes (1946-2006), LSU football great, 1964-1968

Russ Johnson, major league infielder (b. 1973)

Lolo Jones, American track and field athlete

Stefan LeFors, NFL quarterback for the Carolina Panthers (b. 1981)

Travis Minor, NFL running back

Jonathan Papelbon, MLB pitcher for the Boston Red Sox (b. 1980)

Carly Patterson, Olympic gold medalist (b. 1988)

Bob Pettit, Basketball Hall of Famer (b. 1932)

Andy Pettitte, MLB pitcher for the New York Yankees (b. 1972)

Bobby Phills, former professional basketball player (d. 2000)

Ben Sheets, MLB pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers (b. 1978)

Marcus Spears, NFL defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys (b. 1982)

Jim Taylor, Football Hall of Famer (b. 1935)

Tyrus Thomas, NBA forward for the Chicago Bulls (b. 1986)

Reggie Tongue, NFL safety for the Kansas City Chiefs, Seattle Seahawks, New York Jets, and Oakland Raider

Kevin Windham, professional motocross racer

Reggie Torbor, NFL Linebacker for the New York Giants (b.1981)

Mickey Marshall, BMX AM's rider

Entertainers

Wes Brown, actor We Are Marshall, Glory Road, Beach Girls.

Donna Douglas, actress from The Beverly Hillbillies (b. 1933)

Wesley Eure, actor/author

John Fred, singer, best known for the song Judy in Disguise (With Glasses) (1941-2005)

Dale Houston, singer, best known for the song I'm Leaving It Up To You (1940-2007)

Randy Jackson, musician, record producer, and American Idol judge (b. 1956)

Chris Thomas King, American blues musician and actor (b. 1962)

Lil Boosie, rap artist (b. 1983)

Reiley McClendon, actor (b. 1990)

John McConnell, actor, radio personality (b. 1958)

Cleo Moore, actress (d. 1973)

Elemore Morgan, Jr, landscape painter and photographer (b. 1931)

James Paul, Conductor Emeritus of the Baton Rouge Symphony (b. 1940)

Tabby Thomas, blues musician and club owner (b. 1929)

Pruitt Taylor Vince, character actor (b. 1960)

Webbie, rap artist (b. 1985)

Shane West, actor (b. 1978)

Lynn Whitfield, actress

C-Loc, rap artist

Max Minelli, rap artist (b.1980)

Trent Dawson, actor from As the World Turns (b.1971)

John Mese, actor (b.1963)

Cameron Richardson, Actress, Adrift (b.09/11/1979)

Politicians

Jesse Bankston (b. 1907), centenarian president of Louisiana Public Broadcasting; longterm member of the Democratic State Central Committee; former confidant of Earl Kemp Long

James H. Boyce (1922-1990), Caterpillar Company industrialist and chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party, 1972-1976

Jack Breaux, first Republican mayor of a Louisiana community, mayor of Zachary in East Baton Rouge Parish from 1966 until his death in 1980

Overton Brooks, former Louisiana Democratic U.S. representative from 1937-1961, representing the Shreveport district (d. 1961), D

James H. "Jim" Brown, former state senator, secretary of state, and state insurance commissioner (b. 1940), D

Theo Cangelosi, (1911-1992), former state representative, lawyer, banker, gubernatorial advisor, D

Carl Crane, state representative from Baton Rouge since 1984, R

Charles H. Dillemuth (1912-1989), real estate businessman for whom the "Charles H. Dillemuth Humanitarian of the Year Award" is named; congressional candidate in 1960, civic leader, R

Jeff Fortenberry, U.S. representative from Nebraska (b. 1960), R

Clark Gaudin, attorney and first Republican state representative from East Baton Rouge Parish since Reconstruction (b. 1931), R

Kip Holden, Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge Parish (b. 1952), D

Louis E. "Woody" Jenkins, former Louisiana state representative and three-time U.S. Senate candidate (b. 1947), R

Donald Ray Kennard, Louisiana state representative from East Baton Rouge and Livingston parishes since 1976, R

Elmer Litchfield, sheriff of East Baton Rouge Parish from 1983 to 2006 (b. 1927), R

Chuck McMains, former state representative and Baton Rouge lobbyist, R

Henson Moore, U.S. representative from Sixth Congressional District, 1975-1987, R

Robert Fred "Bob" Odom, state agriculture commissioner, 1980-2008, D

Dan Richey, former state legislator and political consultant (b. 1948), R

Buddy Roemer, former governor and Baton Rouge businessman (b. 1943), R

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council (b. 1963), R

Zachary Taylor an American military leader and the twelfth President of the United States(1784 – 1850), W

Sandra Thompson, environmentalist and former director of the Atchafalaya Basin Project, R

David Treen, former Louisiana governor (b. 1928), R

Military commanders

Robert H. Barrow, 27th Commandant for the USMC from 1979-1983 (b. 1922)

John A. Lejeune, Marine Corps general (d. 1942)

Intellectuals

Ed Cullen, Baton Rouge Morning Advocate columnist, National Public Radio essayist, author of Letter in a Woodpile

Margaret Dixon, first woman managing editor of the Morning Advocate (1949-1970), crusader for prison reform and assistance to the mentally ill

Mike Dunne (1949-2007), environmental reporter for the Morning Advocate

Stephan Kinsella, American intellectual property lawyer and libertarian legal theorist (b. 1965)

Lars Kestner, author

John LaPlante (1953-2007), Capitol Bureau chief for the Morning Advocate

Eugene Wigner, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and emeritus professor at Louisiana State University

Joe Giaime, physics professor at LSU, head of the LIGO Livingston Observatory

Sister cities

Aix-en-Provence, France

Cordoba, Mexico

Taichung, Taiwan

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

After a visit to the Republic of China (Taiwan), Mayor-President Kip Holden unveiled plans to pursue a sister city agreement with a second Taiwanese city, Taipei.

External links

Official Baton Rouge Government Web Site

Baton Rouge Retrospective: history in photographs and postcards

Authorities

Baton Rouge Police Department

Louisiana State Police

Baton Rouge Guide

News sources

The Advocate (Baton Rouge)

WBRZ

WAFB

WVLA

WGMB

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vicksburg is a city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is located 234 miles (377 km) north by west of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and 40 miles (65 km) due west of Jackson, the state capital. In 1900, 14,834 people lived in Vicksburg; in 1910, 20,814; in 1920, 17,931; and in 1940, 24,460. The population was 26,407 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Warren County.

Geography

Vicksburg is located at (32.335986, -90.875356). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 35.3 square miles (98.32 km²), of which, 32.9  square miles (85.2 km²) of it is land and 2.4 square miles (6.2 km²) of it (6.78%) is water. It is located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers.

History

Incorporated in 1825, Vicksburg was created from the community of Walnut Hills and named after Newitt Vick, a Methodist minister and conscientious objector to the American Revolution.
During the American Civil War, Vicksburg was the site of the Siege of Vicksburg, a significant event in which the Union gained control of the entire Mississippi River. The 47-day Siege of Vicksburg was required to starve the city into submission, for its location atop a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River proved impregnable to assault by federal troops. The capture of Vicksburg and the simultaneous defeat of Lee at Gettysburg marked the turning point in the American Civil War.
Because of the city's location on the Mississippi River, its reputation in the nineteenth century often rested on the river's prodigious steamboat traffic. Between 1881 and 1894, the Anchor Line, a prominent steamboat company operating on the Mississippi River from 1859 to 1898, operated a steamboat called the City of Vicksburg, named for the city. In 1876 a Mississippi River flood cut off the large meander flowing past Vicksburg leaving access to the new channel limited. The United States Army Corps of Engineers diverted the Yazoo River in 1903 into the old, shallowing channel to rejuvenate the waterfront. Railroad access to the west was by transfer steamers and ferry barges until a combination railroad and highway bridge was built in 1929. This is the only Mississippi River rail crossing between Baton Rouge and Memphis and the only highway crossing between Natchez and Greenville. Interstate 20 bridged the River in 1969 and freight rail traffic still crosses by the old bridge. North-South transportation links are by the Mississippi River and U.S. Highway 61.
On 12 March 1894, the popular soft drink Coca-Cola was bottled for the first time in Vicksburg by Joseph Biedenharn, a local confectioner. Today, surviving nineteenth-century Biedenharn soda bottles are prized by collectors of Coca-Cola memorabilia. The location of Coke's first bottling has been preserved by the Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation as the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum and features a reproduction of the first equipment used to bottle Coca-Cola as well as a large collection of Coca-Cola memorbilia. The museum is open daily.
Willie Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 1, 1915. Muddy Waters was born a few miles north in Rolling Fork, Mississippi in 1915.
Vicksburg served as the primary refugee gathering point and temporary housing during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 which submerged an area of the Mississippi Delta nearly the size of New England. That Flood was the impetus towards establishment of the United States Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station as the primary hydraulics laboratory to develop protection from the River. That establishment, now known as the Engineer Research and Development Center, works in the areas of military engineering, information technology, environmental engineering, hydraulic engineering, and geotechnical engineering.

Civil War, Confederate Soldier

N e z a t A d o l f, born Nov. 7, 1841, in Port Barre, LA, called Adolf fils, is a grandson of “Alexandre of Attakapas” Nezat Alexandre, last son of Pierre Nezat who came 1755/59 from France. Adolf arrived at Vicksburg, MS, Oct. 20, 1862, 1st LA Heavy Artillery. Died in camp Dec. 16, 1862. He is the grandfather of Joseph Harrison Nezat (b. 1894, d. 1962), Veteran of WWI (Long Island National Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY) and the great great grandfather of Jack Claude Nezat, Author.

To be completed

Education

The City of Vicksburg is served by the Vicksburg-Warren School District.

Trivia

Vicksburg is home to the longest running melodrama, Gold in the Hills.

Confederate Army General John C. Pemberton, surmising that he could get better terms by surrendering the town on July 4th, did so, and on that date he had his troops stack their arms and allow Ulysses S. Grant and Union troops to enter the city. Pemberton was thereafter scorned for his conduct of the siege. The city of Vicksburg did not celebrate the Fourth of July again until during World War II.

Vicksburg is the residence of the cajun lady known as "Mississippi Queen" in the rock and roll standard of the same name by the band Mountain.

Some of the movie O Brother Where Art Thou was filmed here.

Vicksburg is mentioned in the Pulitzer Prize winning play Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley.

Notable residents

William Wirt Adams, Confederate Army officer and member of the Mississippi House of Representatives

Milt Hinton, jazz bassist

Tommy Bishop, country guitarist; godfather of "rockabilly" guitar.

John "Kayo" Dottley, college All-American and Professional Football Player

George McConnell, former guitarist for Widespread Panic, Kudzu Kings, and Beanland

Beah Richards, African-American film and television actress

Jan-Michael Vincent, retired American film and television actor, best known as the star of Airwolf (1980s TV series)

Michael Myers, defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengls.

Ellis Burks, former MLB outfielder.

Taylor Tankersly, Florida Marlins relief pitcher.

Rod Coleman, defensive tackle for the Atlanta Falcons.

Louis Edward Green, linebacker for the Denver Broncos.

Dmitri Young, first baseman for the Washington Nationals

Charles Burnett, filmaker.

Odia Coates, country singer.

Willie Dixon, blues bassit, singer, songwriter, and producer.

Delmon Young, outfielder for the Minnesota Twins.

Eva Davis, preserved and saved the Old Vicksburg Courthouse, made it into a museum

Douglas Waldrep and Garrett Verdine are not from Vicksburg.

Sources and References

Cox, James L. The Mississippi Almanac. (2001). ISBN 0-9643545-2-7

i am from vicksburg

External links

History of Vicksburg's Jewish community (from the Institute of Southern Jewish Life)

Government

Official City of Vicksburg website

Media

The Vicksburg Post, the local daily newspaper serving the greater Vicksburg area

Tourism

Vicksburg Convention & Visitors Bureau

Old Court House Museum

Historic Anchuca Mansion

Mississippi River Tours

Geography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Visitors to Jackson will discover an interesting blend of old and new that is perhaps best exemplified by the city's distinct neighborhoods. As Mississippi's largest city and state capital, Jackson is home to nearly 200,000 people, although its slow pace and wide population distribution make it seem smaller. Located on the banks of the winding Pearl River, the city was incorporated in 1833 for the express purpose of being the state capital, and its orderly layout still stands as a testament to the lasting benefits of sound city planning. Exploring the city requires some forethought, however, as well as (in most cases) a car, as many of Jackson's tourist attractions, shopping opportunities and business concerns are spread over a large geographic area.

Downtown Downtown is where the action is, at least during business hours. At ground zero sits the Mississippi State Capitol, bordered by High Street to the north and President Street to the east. Built in 1903, this stunning structure was modeled on the United States Capitol in Washington and cuts a commanding figure against the downtown skyline. Two blocks to the south, on the corner of Congress and Capitol, you will find the Mississippi Governor's Mansion , a fine example of Greek Revival architecture and one of the few lucky buildings to survive the Civil War. Two other antebellum buildings are located nearby: the Old State Capitol on State Street and Jackson City Hall at the corner of Pascagoula and Congress. In addition to its own historical value, the Old Capitol building harbors the country's most comprehensive museum on Mississippi history and culture.

Downtown is home to most of Jackson's cultural outlets. Two blocks from City Hall rests the Russell C. Davis Planetarium, one of the largest in the Southeast; it stands right next door to the Mississippi Museum of Art, which boasts the world's largest collection of folk art and crafts by regional artisans. Performances by the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra , the Ballet Magnificat! and the Mississippi Opera Association are regularly scheduled at Thalia Mara Hall , a state-of-the-art auditorium directly across the street.

Ridgeland Situated just a few miles from the city center, Ridgeland comprises an enormous mass of shopping, eating and lodging opportunities, along with a bit of nightlife. At the core of it all is the Northpark Mall , which provides Jackson shoppers with everything from large national department stores to the finest in local specialty shops.

While in the area, be sure to pay a visit to Tougaloo College . One of the nation's oldest and most-respected traditionally black colleges, Tougaloo's historic Woodworth Chapel was the site of many important meetings and events during the Civil Rights Movement. Also of historical significance is the Natchez Trace Parkway , which bypasses Jackson through Ridgeland and neighboring Madison. One of America's oldest and most beautiful thoroughfares, the Trace was originally a trading route for American Indians and today operates under the protection of the National Park Service. Ridgeland is also home to one of Jackson's most popular recreational facilities, the Ross Barnett Reservoir. This 33,000-acre expanse of water was created by the damming of the Pearl River and serves as a summertime playground for boaters, swimmers, fishermen and picnic-goers.

Mid North North of the downtown business district is a comfortable neighborhood of residences, small businesses and large medical facilities. In the middle of it all is scenic Millsaps College . Across the road is the towering Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium , a venue for concerts and major sporting events. This area also contains Jackson's thriving medical community, anchored by the enormous Baptist Medical Center on State Street and the University of Mississippi Medical School.

Mid North is home to many museums and recreational outlets, perhaps none more utilized than the verdant expanse of LeFleur's Bluff State Park . Offering fishing, camping and even a nine-hole public golf course, the park also houses one of the city's most cherished shrines, the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science . Across the street, a large, state-owned complex is home to the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame , the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Museum . And while you're in the neighborhood, be sure to catch a minor league baseball game at Smith-Wills Stadium .

Farish Street Historically significant but financially depressed in recent years, the Farish Street Historical District comprises roughly 60 square blocks just to the west of downtown Jackson. In the years of racial segregation that followed the Civil War, this neighborhood became a center of black culture, politics, religion and business. At its peak, Farish Street was a thriving and vibrant community, and landmarks such as the Alamo Theater regularly hosted such greats as Louis Armstrong. With nearly 700 historical landmarks inside its boundaries, including churches, buildings and Civil Rights shrines, this neighborhood is worth seeing. If you visit Jackson during September, be sure to check out the Farish Street Heritage Festival.

Outlying Areas Much of the Jackson area's interest actually lies outside the city. Amid the lower middle-class neighborhoods that stretch away to the southwest of downtown, for example, are the enormous Methodist Medical Center and Jackson State University . One of the nation's premier historically black colleges, Jackson State is home to the newly renovated H.T. Sampson Library and historic Ayer Hall. Similarly positioned to the near northwest of downtown, the Medgar Evers Home , a fittingly subtle tribute to the soft-spoken Civil Rights martyr, sits on a quiet residential street.

Due west of the Old State Capitol, you will find the sprawling greens of the Mississippi State Fairgrounds , the regular site for many exhibitions, livestock shows and, of course, the State Fair.

James Redmond

Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, in the U.S.. The 2000 census recorded the population as 50,644. Biloxi is co–county seat with the larger city Gulfport, in the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area.
The beachfront of Biloxi lies directly on the Mississippi Sound, with barrier islands scattered off the coast and into the Gulf of Mexico.
Keesler Air Force Base lies within the city and is home to the 81st Training Wing of the U.S. Air Force.

Geography

Biloxi is located at (30.412029, -88.927829) and has an elevation of .
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 46.5 mi²(120.5 km² ). 38.0 mi² (98.5 km²) of it is land and 8.5 mi² (22.0 km²) of it is water. The total area is 18.27% water.

Colonial era

The history of Biloxi, Mississippi, spans more than 300 years.
The first permanent settlement in French Louisiana was founded at Fort Maurepas, now in Ocean Springs, Mississippi and referred to as Old Biloxi, in 1699 under the direction of Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, with Louisiana separated from Spanish Florida at the Perdido River near Pensacola (founded 1559 & again 1698). In 1720, the administrative capital of French Louisiana was moved to Biloxi from Mobile.
Due to fears of tides and hurricanes, the capital of French Louisiana was later moved by colonial governor Bienville, in 1723, from Biloxi to a new inland harbor town named Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans), built for the purpose in 1718-1720.
In 1763, France had to cede French Louisiana east of the Mississippi River, except for New Orleans, to Great Britain. At that same time, the king Louis XV of France sold Louisiana west of the Mississippi, including New Orleans, to Spain.

Recent History and Hurricane Katrina

With the introduction of gambling in Mississippi in the 1990s, Biloxi became an important center for casinos; the hotels and complexes brought millions of dollars in tourism revenue to the city. The more famous casino complexes were the Beau Rivage casino resort, the Hard Rock Casino Biloxi, Casino Magic, Grand Casino, Isle of Capri Casino Resort, Boomtown Casino, President Broadwater Casino Resort, and Imperial Palace. Like Tunica County in the northern part of the state, Biloxi and the surrounding Gulf Coast region was considered a leading gambling center in the Southern United States until many casinos were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Of the casinos that were located in Biloxi, six have reopened since Katrina. They are the Isle of Capri Casino and Resort, the Palace Casino resort, the Imperial Palace, Treasure Bay Casino, Boomtown Casino, and the Beau Rivage, which re-opened on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
On August 29 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast with high winds, heavy rains and a 30-foot storm surge, causing massive damage to the area.
Katrina came ashore during the high tide of 6:56AM, +2.3 feet more.
Commenting on the power of the storm and the damage, Mayor A.J. Holloway said, "This is our tsunami". Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour was quoted as saying the destruction of the Mississippi coastline by Hurricane Katrina looked like an American Hiroshima.
On the morning of August 31 2005, in an interview on MSNBC, Governor Barbour stated that 90% of the buildings along the coast in Biloxi and neighboring Gulfport had been destroyed by the hurricane. Several of the "floating" casinos were torn off their supports and thrown inland, contributing to the damage. All coastal churches were destroyed or severely damaged.
Many churches were damaged, including St. Michael's Catholic Church (see photo at right), which was gutted by the storm surge, breaking the entry doors and stained-glass windows along the first floor; however, the interior was later removed, and the structure was still solid enough to allow repairing the church.
Hurricane Katrina damaged over 40 Mississippi libraries, flooding several feet in the Biloxi Public Library and breaking windows, beyond repair, requiring a total rebuild.
Hurricane-force winds persisted for 17 hours and tore the branches off many coastal oak trees, but the tree trunks survived the 30-foot flood and many have since regrown smaller branches. Some reconstructed homes still have the antebellum appearance, and miles inland, with less flooding, shopping centers have re-opened.
Harrison County Coroner Gary T. Hargrove told the mayor and City Council that Hurricane Katrina had claimed 53 victims in Biloxi, as of January 30, 2006. Of the 53 confirmed fatalities in Biloxi, a figure that includes one unidentified male, Hargrove said the average age was 58, with youngest being 22 and oldest, 90; and 14 were females and 39 were males.
Biloxi is also the site of a well-known memorial to the Katrina victims, built by the crew and volunteers of .
Multiple plans have been laid out to rebuild the waterfront areas of Biloxi, and the federal government has recently announced that it is considering giving up to 17,000 Mississippi coast homeowners the option to sell their properties so that a vast hurricane-protection zone can be implemented. Meanwhile, the city of Biloxi is rapidly implementing plans to allow the redevelopment of commercial properties south of highway 90.

Education

The City of Biloxi is served by the Biloxi Public School District and the Harrison County School District.

Religion

Biloxi is the episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Biloxi.

Casinos

Biloxi has become home to several casino resort hotels, with 24-hour gambling, concert entertainment shows, and several restaurants. Some of the casino resorts are the following:

Imperial Palace re-opened as IP Hotel & Casino on Dec. 22, 2005.

Isle of Capri Casino Resort re-opened in late December 2005.

Palace Casino Resort re-opened in late December 2005.

Beau Rivage Resort & Casino re-opened August 29, 2006, on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Boomtown Casino re-opened in 2006.

Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, which had initially hoped to open for post-Katrina business in Summer 2006, but opened later than expected in June of 2007.

Treasure Bay Casino Resort re-opened in summer 2006.

Grand Casino (Biloxi)

Bacaran Bay Resort has begun construction on Caillavet Street between IP Hotel and Casino and Beau Rivage.

Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Casino and Resort, announced by Harrah's to be built on the site of the old Grand Casino Biloxi and Casino Magic properties.

Island View Casino Resort is nearby Gulfport's only casino and home to one of world-famous chef "Emeril's" restaurants.

The Silver Slipper was the first land-based casino to open following Hurricane Katrina. This beachfront resort is located in Bay St. Louis, west of Biloxi.

Casino Hollywood is also a Bay St. Louis property that includes an on-site golf course and movie cinema decor.

The Pine Hills Resort is a new Bay St. Louis casino resort project underway by Isle of Capri Casinos.

Biloxi's neighbor D'Iberville will be home to former MGM exec Peter Simon's newly approved casino The Monarch.

D'Iberville will also be the future home of Royal D'Iberville Casino Resort, a newly approved project.

Bayview Casino Resort will begin construction in January 2008 on the Back Bay of Biloxi.

Vue Crescente Resort has begun it's application to house a casino within it's new twin 30 floor condo towers that are being built on the Back Bay of Biloxi.

Tivoli Resort, The Ocean Club, and a Long Beach project are recently proposed casino additions to the metro area.

Sports

In the center of what fisheries biologists term "The Fertile Fisheries Crescent", Biloxi offers some of the finest sportsfishing along the entire northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Spotted seatrout, red drum, Spanish and king mackerel, flounder, snapper, grouper, sharks, and more are all available to anglers during the fishing season. It is not known how Hurricane Katrina affected this ecosystem.
The city is home to the Mississippi Sea Wolves, an ECHL minor league hockey team.

Notable residents

Matt Barlow, heavy metal singer

Fred Haise, Apollo 13/Space Shuttle Enterprise astronaut

Chris LeDoux, country singer

Eric Roberts, actor

Belladonna, adult film star

Hector Camacho, former world champion boxer

Jefferson Davis, US Army General and West Point graduate; first and only President of the Confederate States of America

Damion Fletcher, University of Southern Mississippi award winning running back

Jimmy Buffett, singer and writer

George E. Ohr, artist who broke new ground in the late 1890s with his experimental modern clay forms

Edward Charles Edmond Barq, entrepreneur and co-creator of Barq's Root Beer

Robin Roberts,TV/Radio/Media personality for ABC and ESPN.

Ronald Dupree a professional basketball player.

3 Doors Down, rock band

Jessica Alba, actress

In fiction

Biloxi is the setting of several John Grisham novels, including The Runaway Jury, The Summons, The Firm, The Partner, and The Last Juror.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, a man named "Blocks" Biloxi from Biloxi, Mississippi crashes Tom and Daisy Buchanon's wedding.

Biloxi is also the setting of Neil Simon's play and film Biloxi Blues, which starred Mathew Broderick. Biloxi Blues is the story of army recruits training at Keesler Field, the former name of the present day Keesler Air Force Base during World War II.

The G.I. Joe character Marvin F. Hinton ("Roadblock") was born in Biloxi, Mississippi.

The film Private Benjamin starring Goldie Hawn is partially set in Biloxi.

In the Twilight series, Alice Cullen has a niece living in Biloxi.

External links

Official web page

Photographs of Hurricane Katrina's destruction on Mississippi's Gulf Coast from davidmetraux.com

History of Biloxi's Jewish community (from the Institute of Southern Jewish Life)

The Sun-Herald

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gulfport is the second largest city in Mississippi after the state capital Jackson. It is the larger (population wise) of two principal cities of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, the city of Gulport had a total population of 71,127. Gulfport is co-county seat with Biloxi of Harrison County, Mississippi. Gulfport is the east coast home to the US Navy Seabees, and also the birthplace of American football player Brett Favre.
On August 29, 2005, Gulfport was hit by the strong east side of Hurricane Katrina, and much of Gulfport was flooded or destroyed (see details below). Much of Gulfport was also severely damaged by Hurricane Camille on August 17, 1969.

Geography

Gulfport is located at 30°24'6" North, 89°4'34" W (30.401641,   -89.076169).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city had a total area of 64.2 square miles (166.4 km²): 56.9 square miles (147.4 km²) of it is land and 7.3 square miles (19.0 km²) of it is water. The total area was 11.40% water. It is unknown at this time what effect Hurricane Katrina has had on these figures.

Education

The City of Gulfport is served by the Gulfport School District and the Harrison County School District.

Media

The local newspaper is The Sun Herald.

Hurricane Katrina

On August 29, 2005, Gulfport was hit by the strong eastern side of Hurricane Katrina. Much of Gulfport was flooded or destroyed in one day by the strong hurricane-force winds which lasted over 16 hours and a storm surge exceeding 28 feet (9 m) in some sections.
Hurricane Katrina damaged over 40 Mississippi libraries, gutting the Gulfport Public Library, first floor, and breaking windows on the second floor, beyond repair, requiring a total rebuild.
The Sun Herald newspaper in Biloxi-Gulfport, under the executive editor Stanley R. Tiner, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in journalism for its Katrina coverage.

External links

City of Gulfport's Official web site

History of Gulfport's Jewish community (from the Institute of Southern Jewish Life)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Clarksdale is a city in Coahoma County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 20,645 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Coahoma County. It is located on the banks of the Sunflower River.

Clarksdale was named in honor of founder and resident John Clark, brother-in-law of politician James Lusk Alcorn, whose plantation home is nearby.
Located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, Clarksdale in the early 20th century was known as the "Golden Buckle in the Cotton Belt" with enormous plantations such as that of the Stovall family dominating the landscape. Clarksdale occupied a central place in the agricultural universe when in 1946 the John Deere Company perfected the development of the single row mechanical cotton picking machine at the nearby Hopson Plantation. This technological milestone quickly revolutionized American agriculture and changed the Mississippi Delta forever.

Past this point large workforce populations of underpaid and largely exploited blacks required to work the sprawling plantation tracts instantly became expendible, at exactly the same time that increasing numbers of African American GIs were returning home from WWII. The Illinois Central Railroad operated a large depot in Clarksdale which quickly became a primary departure point for the largest migration of human beings in modern American history, the black migration to Chicago and points north, an escape route away from an accelerating climate of racist hatred for which Coahoma County quickly became known as evidenced by violence against such local figures as musician Ike Turner and Civil Rights leader Dr. Aaron Henry.

This exodus was brilliantly narrated with Clarksdale as a centerpiece in the award winning book "The Promised Land" ISBN 978-0394269672 by Nicholas Lemann, later a documentary produced by the History Channel narrated coincidently by award winning actor and Clarksdale restauranteur, Morgan Freeman.

In 1954 Clarksdale Attorney Semmes Luckett argued unsuccessfully for segregation against Thurgood Marshall in the United States Supreme Court in a ruling which overturned the legal underpinning of "separate but equal" accommodations in the U.S. in Brown vs. Board of Education. Luckett's family still resides in Clarksdale and perhaps as an indication of the social changes evidenced in Clarksdale, William Luckett, grandson of Semmes Luckett, now serves as a business partner of Morgan Freeman.

Geography

Clarksdale is located at (34.197888, -90.571941).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 13.9 square miles (35.9 km²), of which, 13.8 square miles (35.8 km²) of it is land and 0.07% is water.

Education

Public schools

The city of Clarksdale is served by the Clarksdale Municipal School District. The district has nine schools with a total enrollment of 3,600 students.

Private schools

Lee Academy

St. George's Elementary School

Presbyterian Day School

St. Elizabeth's Elementary School

Music history

Clarksdale has been historically significant in the development of the blues, a form of music distinctively African American. The Mississippi Blues Trail, now being implemented, is dedicating markers for historic sites such as Clarksdale's Riverside Hotel where Bessie Smith died after her auto accident on Highway 61. The Riverside Hotel is just one of many historical blues sites in Clarksdale.
In 1979 the Carnegie Public Library under the direction of Sid Graves began a nascent display series which later became the nucleus of the Delta Blues Museum. Graves struggled for the following years with little recognition or support from an indifferent community to keep the museum going when no funding was available, often storing displays in the trunk of his car. Finally when the fledgling museum was discovered by Billy Gibbons of the rock band ZZ Top through contact with Howard Stovall Jr. it became the subject of national attention as a pet project of the band and the Museum began to enjoy the recognition that it so richly deserved.

In the mid 1990's, Graves, then in fragile health, was forced out of the library's directorship and retired to Hattiesburg, Mississippi where he passed away on January 9, 2005. Under the temporary curatorship of musician and tour guide/outdoorsman John Ruskey, the museum grew to include a large section of the newly renovated library building. When finally relocated out of the library entirely, after a year in a converted retail storefront (1995-1996), the Museum moved into the restored Illinois Central Railroad freight depot building where it is currently housed.

"Nobody is gonna come to Clarksdale, Mississippi to hear a black man play the git-tar!". Jimmy Walker, Chairman of the Coahoma County Tourism Commission, speaking before the Coahoma County Chamber of Commerce, Clarksdale, Mississippi, January 25, 1995.

As recently as the late 1990's the potential of the African American art form of the Blues as an economic resource had yet to be accepted by the predominantly white business community in Clarksdale despite all indications to the contrary. The popularity of the Delta Blues Museum, the growth of the Sunflower River Blues Festival, and recognition of Clarksdale's Blues legacy by the press in Europe, Scandinavia, and all across the United States continued unabated. At the turn of the 21st Century the situation has decidedly changed and the Clarksdale business establishment, recognizing the lucrative draw of tourism, has now embraced Clarksdale's role in American musical history at the crossroads of the immortal byways of the Blues, Highway 49 and Highway 61.

Notable people

Eddie "Bongo" Brown, was one of the Funk Brothers that played on the Motown hits in the 1960s

Nate Dogg

Tennessee Williams

Muddy Waters

Sam Cooke

John Lee Hooker

Ike Turner

Super Chikan

Wright Thompson

Charles L. Sullivan

Earl L. Brewer

Earl Barron

Terrence Metcalf

Big Jack Johnson

Aaron Henry

Charlie Conerly

Mario Haggan

Trumaine McBride

Panny Mayfield

External links

Delta News Online:Hometown News For The Mississippi Delta

Clarksdale Blues - famous places

Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale

Clarksdale Press Register website

sites in Coahoma County on the National Register of Historic Places

History of Clarksdale's Jewish community (from the Institute of Southern Jewish Life)

Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Natchez is the county seat of and the largest city within Adams County, Mississippi, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 18,464. One of Mississippi's oldest cities, it was founded in 1716, predating the current capital city — Jackson — by more than a century. Located along the Mississippi River, Natchez is the southern terminus of the Natchez Trace Parkway. The city is famous in American history for its role in the development of the Old Southwest, particularly with respect to its location on the Mississippi River.
Natchez is the principal city of the Natchez, Mississippi-Louisiana Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History

Pre-European settlement (to 1716)

The site of Natchez is the grand ceremonial village of the Natchez tribe (pronounced "Nochi"), who had occupied the site in a culture that was unbroken since the 8th century, according to archaeological finds. Their society was divided into nobles and commoners according to matrilineal descent. The Natchez chief, the "Great Sun" owed his position to the rank of his mother.
The flat-topped ceremonial mounds built by the Natchez show the influence of moundbuilding cultures to the north in the Middle Mississippi River Valley (see Mississippian culture). At Natchez the Grand Village of the Natchez is preserved as a National Historic Landmark, and nearby Emerald Mound, an earlier ceremonial center, may be seen near the Natchez Trace Parkway.

Colonial history (1716-1783)

In 1716 the French founded Fort Rosalie, an outpost in the Natchez territory. French settlements and plantations were subsequently established. The French inhabitants of the "Natchez colony" often found themselves in conflict with the Natchez, who were increasingly split into pro-French and pro-English factions. After several smaller wars the Natchez launched a final war in November 1729 (the "Natchez War"), wiping out the French colony at Natchez. On November 28, 1729, the Natchez Indians killed 138 Frenchmen, 35 French women, and 56 children (the largest death toll by an Indian attack in Mississippi's history). Counterattacks by the French and their Indian allies over the next two years resulted in most Natchez Indians being killed, enslaved, or forced to flee as refugees. Many of the refugees ultimately became part of the Creek and Cherokee nations. Descendants of the Natchez diaspora survive as the Natchez Nation, a treaty tribe and confederate of the federally recognized Muscogee (Creek) Nation with a sovereign traditional government . Subsequently, Fort Rosalie, which was renamed after the extinguished tribe, spent periods under Spanish, and British colonial rule before being ceded to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1783). A census of the Natchez district taken in 1784 counted 1,619 people, including 498 African-American slaves.

Under the early republic (1783-1860)

In the late 18th century Natchez was the starting point of the Natchez Trace overland route, which ran from Natchez to Nashville, Tennessee through what is now Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. Flatboatmen and keelboatmen (locally called "Kaintucks" because they were usually from what is now Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana) who floated their produce downriver, often sold their wares at Natchez, including their boats as lumber, then made the trek back north overland.
On October 27, 1795, the Spanish signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo, by which Natchez was surrendered to the United States. In 1798, when the Mississippi Territory was created by the Adams administration, Natchez became its capital. After 19 years as territorial capital, on 10 December 1817, Natchez became the first capital of the state of Mississippi. Though the capital was shifted to the more-centrally-located city of Jackson in 1822, over the course of the 19th century, Natchez became a town of strategic economic importance, due to its location on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, developing into a bustling port for steamboats. At Natchez, many local cotton plantation owners loaded their cotton onto steamboats at the landing known as "Natchez-Under-the-Hill" and transported their wares downriver to New Orleans or sometimes upriver to St. Louis, Missouri or Cincinnati, Ohio, where the cotton would be sold and transported to Northern spinning mills.
The Natchez region, along with the Sea Islands of South Carolina, pioneered cotton agriculture in the United States. Until new hybridized breeds of cotton were created in the early 19th century, it was uneconomical to grow cotton in the United States anywhere other than these two areas. Although South Carolina came to dominate the cotton plantation culture of much of the Antebellum South, it was the Natchez District that experimented with hybridization, making the cotton boom possible.
On May 7, 1840, an intense tornado struck Natchez. This tornado killed 269 persons in Natchez, most of whom were on flatboats in the Mississippi River. The tornado killed 317 persons in all, making it the second deadliest tornado in United States history. This tornado is today known as the "Great Natchez Tornado."
The terrain around Natchez on the Mississippi side of the river is rather hilly. The city sits on a high bluff above the Mississippi river and in order to reach the riverbank one must travel down a steep road to the landing called Silver Street. This is in marked contrast to the flat lowland found across the river surrounding the city of Vidalia, Louisiana. Natchez is known for its many Antebellum mansions and estates, built by 19th century plantation owners, who would often own farmland in Louisiana but locate their homes on the higher ground in Mississippi. Prior to the Civil War, Natchez had the most millionaires per capita of any city in the United States due to the large number of plantation owners who owned land across the Mississippi River but dwelt in large mansions in Natchez, making it arguably the wealthiest city in the nation at the time. Today the city boasts that it has more antebellum houses than anywhere else in the United States, partly due to the fact that during the American Civil War Natchez was spared the destruction of many other Southern cities, such as Vicksburg.

American Civil War (1861-1865)

During the Civil War, Natchez remained largely undisturbed, but not entirely. Natchez surrendered to Flag-Officer David G. Farragut after the fall of New Orleans in May 1862. In September, 1863, the Union ironclad USS Essex, under Capt. William D. Porter shelled the town and did minor damage but killed a seven year old girl. Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant occupied Natchez in 1863; Grant set up his temporary headquarters in the Natchez mansion Rosalie. Confederate army forces attempted to recapture Natchez in December 1863 but did not attack the town itself because the C.S.A. forces were outnumbered.
Like almost everywhere else in the United States, numerous Natchez residents did in fact fight or participate otherwise in the war and many families lost their antebellum fortunes. The fact that the town was largely spared the horrors of the war is illustrated by the legend of the Battle of Natchez. According to this story, Union troops were being housed in Natchez, civilians and regular bar owners gathered at the river landing to watch Union gunboats travel the Mississippi River from Vicksburg down to New Orleans. In one passing, a Union gunboat fired a blank from a canon to rile up the Union troops at Fort Rosalie. This caused an elderly man to have a heart attack at Under the Hill–the one casualty in the Battle of Natchez.
Despite the city's relatively peaceful atmosphere under Union occupation, Natchez residents remained somewhat defiant of the Federal authorities. In 1864, the Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Natchez, William Henry Elder, refused to obey a Federal order to compel his parishioners to pray for the President of the United States. In response, the Federals arrested Elder, convicted him, and jailed him briefly across the river in Vidalia, Louisiana. Eventually Elder was released and returned to his duties until 1880, when he was elevated to archbishop of Cincinnati.

Postwar period (1865-present)

Natchez was able to make a rapid economic comeback in the postwar years, as much of the commercial traffic on the Mississippi River resumed. In addition to cotton, the development of local industries like logging added to the exports through the city's wharf. In return, Natchez saw an influx of manufactured goods from Northern markets like Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis.
The city's prominent place in Mississippi River commerce over the nineteenth century has been illustrated by the nine different steamboats plying the lower river between 1823 and 1918 that were named Natchez, many of which were built for and commanded by the famous Captain Thomas P. Leathers, whom Jefferson Davis had wanted to head the Confederate defense fleet on the Mississippi River, though this never materialized. In 1885, the Anchor Line, known for its sublime luxury steamboats operating between St. Louis and New Orleans, launched its "brag boat," the City of Natchez, though this boat survived only a year before succumbing to a fire at Cairo, Illinois, on 28 December 1886. Since 1975, an excursion steamboat at New Orleans has also borne the name Natchez.
This river commerce sustained the city's economic growth until just after the turn of the twentieth century, when steamboat traffic began to be replaced by the railroads. The city's economy declined over the course of the century, as in many Mississippi towns, although tourism has helped compensate for the decline.
In 1940, 209 people died in a fire at the Rhythm Night Club. This fire has been noted as the fourth deadliest fire in U.S. history.

Geography

Natchez is located at 31°33'16" North, 91°23'15" West (31.554393, -91.387566).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 13.9 square miles (35.9 km²), of which, 13.2 square miles (34.2 km²) of it is land and 0.6 square miles (1.7 km²) of it is water. The total area is 4.62% water.

Education

Natchez is the home to Alcorn State University's Natchez Campus. The campus is home to the university's nursing school and master's of business administration program. Copiah-Lincoln Community College, also, operates a campus in Natchez.
The city of Natchez and the county of Adams operates one public school system, the Natchez-Adams School District. The district is comprised of eight schools. They are Susie B. West, Morgantown, Gilmer McLaurin, Joseph F Frazier, Robert Lewis Middle School, Central Alternative School, Natchez High School, and Fallin Career and Technology Center.
In Natchez there are a number of private and parochial schools. Trinity Episcopal Day School is PK-12 school founded by the Trinity Episcopal Church. Trinity Episcopal Day School and Adams County Christian School are both members of the Mississippi Private School Association. Cathedral School is also a PK-12 school in the city. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church St. Mary Basilica. Holy Family Catholic School, founded in 1890, is a PK-3 school affiliated with Holy Famliy Catholic Church.

Suburbs

Natchez's surrounding communities include:

Cloverdale, Mississippi

Johnsville, Mississippi

Morgantown, Mississippi

Kingston, Mississippi

Famous Natchezians

Novelist and motivational author Kenneth R. Besser was raised from age 1 in Natchez until his family moved north in 1974.

Novelist Richard Wright, author of "Black Boy" and "Native Son," was born 22 miles east of Natchez.

Robert H. Adams, former United States Senator from Mississippi.

William Wirt Adams, Confederate Army officer, grew up in Natchez.

Lynda Lee Mead, Miss Mississippi in 1959 and Miss America in 1960. A Natchez city street, Lynda Lee Drive, is named in her honor.

It was the birthplace of country singer Mickey Gilley.

Minnesota Vikings cornerback Cedric Griffin was born in Natchez, but was raised in San Antonio, Texas.

University of Pittsburgh All-American defensive end Hugh Green was born in Natchez.

Pro Football Hall of Famer Billy Shaw was born in Natchez.

Novelist Greg Iles is a Natchez native.

Glen Ballard, a five-time Grammy Award winning songwriter/producer.

Denise Gee, national food/home design writer and author of "Southern Cocktails," is a native of Natchez.

Hound Dog Taylor, a blues singer and slide guitar player.

Pierre Adolphe Rost, a member of the Mississippi Senate and commissioner to Europe for the Confederate States. Emigrated to Natchez from France.

Alexander O'Neal, R&B singer.

Nook Logan, Baseball player for the Washington Nationals. Regarded as one of the fastest players in the majors.

Anne Moody, Civil Rights activist and author of Coming of Age in Mississippi, attended Natchez Junior College.

Dwayne Brown, leader of the South Natchez football and baseball teams in the late 60's. Now resides in Lafayette working for the city.

Olu Dara, musician & father of rapper Nas.

Political Scientist and Archaeologist Thomas Tolbert was born in Natchez.

Two-time PBR world champion bull rider Chris Shivers, who was born in Natchez and currently resides in Jonesville, Louisiana.

External links

Official City Website

History of Natchez's Jewish community (from the Institute of Southern Jewish Life)

Interactive Map of Natchez Oil Wells Mississippi Oil Journal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia