Baton Rouge

I got a chance to go to someplace new last week which is becoming rarer as I'm at nwa longer. Just like other careers, eventually things start to become repetitive so I look forward to a chance to get out and see a new city. I got about 19 hours in Baton Rouge and got out and took some pictures and researched the area a bit while I was there.

We took to calling the city "Red Stick" as we were contemplating the effects of an "English Only" language law and the frightening prospects of a Mike Huckabee presidency. "Red Stick" is the English translation of "Baton Rouge" and that would be the new name of the city if English were to be forced upon us.

I wasn't overly impressed with the area although part of it was that there is still extensive damage from the Hurricane(s). There was construction everywhere I looked although there weren't PEOPLE. If you look at these pictures you'll see very few others in them. This really wasn't planned it just happened. It is particularly telling in the pictures that I took further from the Capitol as I'm standing in the middle of the road taking these shots NOT stopping traffic, there simply wasn't any traffic to stop. Now, it is true that it was MLK day and most of the state offices and banks and the like were closed but even in Charleston which has a reputation of rolling up the streets on holidays I wouldn't be able to stand in the middle of Kanawha Blvd. and snap pictures without dodging SOME traffic.

Below you will find three articles. One is on the USS Kidd which is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, one is on Huey Long who is a definitive political figure in the State of Louisiana and one is just a list of fun Baton Rouge facts. Also, there are several pictures that I took with most of them captioned. The pictures include photos of the USS Kidd, the Capitol of Louisiana and some pictures of an exhibit of pictures entitled "The Faces of Katrina" that was on display at the Visitors Center near the Capitol building. Many of the pictures are very moving and touching and I thought that I'd bring them to my blog. Hope you enjoy and feel free to leave me some comments on my blog! I like the feedback and it is nice to know that people are reading.


From the USSKidd website, www.usskidd.com


The USS KIDD (DD-661) is a Fletcher-class destroyer, the six hundred sixty-first destroyer built by the United States Navy. In the traditional system of naming destroyers after Naval heroes, she was named after Rear Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd, Sr. who was killed aboard his flagship, USS ARIZONA (BB-39) during the surprise attack by the Japanese on the American fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.


USS KIDD (DD-661) Ship's Seal

Built at Federal Shipbuilding & Dry-dock Company of Kearny, New Jersey, KIDD was one of four destroyers [USS BULLARD (DD-660), USS THORN (DD-647), and USS TURNER (DD-648)] launched on February 28, 1943 in a record-breaking fourteen minutes. Mrs. Inez Kidd, widow of RADM Kidd, served as the ship's sponsor, christening her and presenting her crew with a handsome wardroom guest book in which she wrote: "May the destiny of the USS KIDD be glorious! May her victories be triumphant and conclusive!"


From www.uss.gov

Huey Long was Governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930. A nominal Democrat, Huey Long was a radical populist, of a sort we are unfamiliar with in our day. As Governor, he sponsored many reforms that endeared him to the rural poor. An ardent enemy of corporate interests, he championed the "little man" against the rich and privileged. A farm boy from the piney woods of North Louisiana, he was colorful, charismatic, controversial, and always just skating on the edge. He gave himself the nickname "Kingfish" because, he said, "I'm a small fish here in Washington. But I'm the Kingfish to the folks down in Louisiana."

Huey Long was the determined enemy of Wall Street, bankers and big business and he was also a determined enemy of the Roosevelt administration because he saw it as too beholden to these powerful forces.

Huey Long did not suffer from excessive modesty. A high-school dropout who taught himself law and got a law degree in only one year of study, Long was confident he would become President of the United States in 1936. So confident was he that he wrote a book entitled My First Days in the White House in which he named his cabinet (including President Roosevelt as Secretary of the Navy and President Hoover as Secretary of Commerce) and in which he conducted long imaginary conversations with FDR and Hoover designed to humiliate them and show their subservience to the boy from the piney woods of Louisiana.

The Kingfish wanted the government to confiscate the wealth of the nation's rich and privileged. He called his program Share Our Wealth. It called upon the federal government to guarantee every family in the nation an annual income of $5,000, so they could have the necessities of life, including a home, a job, a radio and an automobile. He also proposed limiting private fortunes to $50 million, legacies to $5 million, and annual incomes to $1 million. Everyone over age 60 would receive an old-age pension. His slogan was "Every Man A King."





10 Interesting Facts About Baton Rouge

1 Baton Rouge was first named in 1699 by the French explorer Iberville as he traveled up the Mississippi River. He reported seeing a "tall red pole", or "baton rouge" in French, supposedly marking the boundary between two Indian tribes.

The exact location of the pole has been debated for years, some believing it was the junction of Bayou Manchac and the river while others think it may have been at Scott’s Bluff on what is now Southern University’s campus.

2 East Baton Rouge and the City of Baton Rouge merged as governmental entities in 1949 and became one of the first “consolidated” governments in the country.

3 Baton Rouge is the state capital of Louisiana. It became the capital in 1846, after lawmakers first tried moving from New Orleans to Donaldsonville in 1830, but lawmakers quickly moved back to New Orleans. The 1854 Constitution required the capitol to be no closer than 60 miles from New Orleans, so lawmakers picked Baton Rouge.

4 There are two state capitol buildings in Baton Rouge: The Old State Capitol was built in 1850 but was burned during the Civil War and rebuilt in the 1880s. It is located at 100 North Blvd. Mark Twain called it a “sham castle.” The new State Capitol, a 34-story building featuring marble and bronze with a observation deck on the 27th floor, was opened in 1932. It is on State Capitol Drive.

5 In 1979, the city of Baton Rouge’s Fire Department was the first in the nation to receive a Class 1 rating from the Property Insurance Association. It has maintained that rating, which has also become more common. The Fire Department’s roots began as a 94-person bucket brigade in 1825.

6 In 1810, the city had a population of 1,463 people. East of Seventh Street, there were few residences. Nearly 200 years later, the 2000 Census counted 227,818 people living in the city of Baton Rouge and 412,852 people living in the parish of East Baton Rouge.

7 Most people feel modern-day Baton Rouge really began to grow when Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil) arrived in 1909. Its refinery north of town would prove to be a major influence in the growth of the city and lured other petrochemical facilities to begin the core of the area’s Petrochemical Corridor along the Mississippi.

8 Seagoing vessels can travel up the Mississippi River as far as the U.S. 190 Bridge. That’s about 234 miles above Head of Passes, where the river splits into several channels and distributaries. The Port of Greater Baton Rouge, whose jurisdiction includes public and private facilities in East and West Baton Rouge, Iberville and Ascension parishes, is the ninth largest in the nation in terms of tonnage.

9 The average annual temperature in East Baton Rouge Parish is 70 degrees. In January, the average temperature is 70, in July 80 degrees. Annual average rainfall is 77.64 inches — a little more than 6 feet. It’s also pretty flat — the average elevation is 19 feet; two spots in the northern part of the parish are between 140 feet and 145 feet. The parish covers 455.7 square miles between the Mississippi and Amite Rivers on the west and east and generally Bayou Manchac on the south and the East Feliciana-East Baton Rouge parish line to the north.

10 Baton Rouge is home to three public colleges: Louisiana State University, Southern University and Baton Rouge Community College.