10-JSec 1)-Statesman, Salem, Ore., Friday, July 22, 1955
Louisiana - Drea
i fif.
' 11 W it
i! "11151
k. 19-5
.
Modern Ihdusti Blossoms
7
f s
) j b L
BATON ROUGE Louisiana's $5,000,000 statehous here, its 34 stories rising 450 foot on its
27-acre landscape she, is visited by mort thin 250,000 tourists annually. It was completed
in 1932.
m w r t -"EiaahJ. & -.- . . m w m .aiT a m m itiv ; ' - ai j v w r
Z v.y-. - H 1 1 i- ir j-, i u m v ;i Sim
BATON ROUGE Jackson Square was laid out in 1720 by Bienville, founder of New Qr-;
leans. The St. Louis Cathedral dates from 1794. In the foreground (left of the cathedralfis
the Presbytere and at the right of the church is the Cabildo, ancient seat of Spanish-rule.
Here is housed the Louisiana State museum. Photo at right above ir the shadows on the
Teche at New Iberi., one of the deep South s fabled homes. Built in 1 830 by David Weeks, '
a man seven feet !aK, the 16-room mansion is constructed of handsome brick and sits
amid a lush floral setting. The present owner is David Weeks, descendant of th builder
and a noted Louisiana artist. ' .
' 1 ' "" ' 1 cry 1 iyyjtk 'I' ' ' '' "' ' "' "
f' f - ' ' 7 . '
i'1
1
lit
i--V'
V
j I 28 3 S' B-
I
IS 1 1 5
M af
9
II 251
33511
EI5S2
S1II1
Miai
3 I II I
iiiii
sain
83SII
nfu
I,
I
1
, ....... - - r , ft
: i i i . :
-,1
Si
pa.aCP
$
Special to The lUUmai
BATON ROUGE, La , John Law,
the glib promoter of the Missis
sippi Bubble, whose golden lies of
immense and easy wealth in
France's Louisiana colony lured
thousands of hapless settlers on a
wild goose chase in the early
eighteenth century, would today be
considered a man of quiet under
statement. - -
Law was the wily Scot who per
suaded Louis XV to go along with
his ' bold scheme to open . the
Louisiana territory - and thereby
replenish the slim French treasury,
and. incidentally, his own. Law's
Company of the West was to have
all operating rights' in the new
country and to act as the agent
of the Crown. To implement his
ambitious plan Law needed colon
ists and he called on his consider
able talents as huckster and press
agent to sell the unknown land to
the war-weary peasants of Europe,
Gleaming Portrait
He had little knowledge of the
Louisiana territory, and that iitut
was discouraging. Instead, Jie
painted a gleaming portrait of a
golden land. rich, beyond measure
in gems and precious metals. Law
was the supreme con man of his
century and his towering lies lured
thousands ' to Louisiana. There
they found death an desolation
and died cursing Law and his lies.
- But the final irony was that Law
had not lied, that even his soar
ing imagination did not begin to
estimate the real wealth of Louisi
ana. The land of the Mississippi Bub
ble was probably first sighted by
Alvarez de Pineda, who explored
the Gulf Coast and reported the
discovery of a great river, pre
sumably the Mississippi. The
northern part of the state was ex
-n 1 II;
ye-.
7T; tv?: T-r;
BATON ROUGE" Canal Street at night New Orleans' famed thoroughfare is one of the widest (171 feet), and best-lighted in fie world. Originally a
canal, the street serves as e dividing lino between the oid and new sections of the city. At the left, the centuries-old Gabrie! oak ftames a seen of
Acadian maids on the lawn in front of the Acadian House Museum at Longfellow-Evsngeline State Park at St. Martinville. Built in 1765. the house was
once the home of Louis Arceneaux, prototype of the Gabriel of Longfellow's epic poem, "Evangeline." - : . t '
plored some 30 years liter by Her
nando de Soto. Europe then, lost
interest in the wild territory and
140 years passed before La Salle
took possession in the name of
Louis XTV, for whom it , was
named.
Colony Grows
Pierre le Moyne. Sieur d'lber-
ville, established a small garrison
in 1700, but it was another 14
years before the first permanent
settlement was founded at what is
today Natchitoches. Slowly, the
colony grew ... in size and im
portance. As it grew in importance it be
came a pushball of European pow
er politics- France gave it to Spain,
only to have it returned in time to
be sold to the young United States
In the intervening years there was
a brief period of independence And
a short-lived attempt by the Brit
ish to wrest control from Spain.
This bewildering succession of
rules, augmented by the migra
tion of some- 4000 Acadians from
Nova Scotia in the mid-eighteenth
century, bequeathed to Louisiana
several sets of cultures, as well as
languages.
Most Exotic State
When it was admitted Into the
Union on April 30, 1810, Louisiana
was doubtlessly the most exotic
of all the states. There were the
French and Spanish Creoles, later
to be partially engulfed
by the Americans, the Cajuns, a
sprinkling of English, Scotch-Irish,
and, from the original wave of im
migrants hired by John Law, Ger
mans. Each of the groups took a part
of Louisiana for its own and
stamped it indelibly with its cut
ture. The rich, rolling red earth
of the north is cotton and timber
country; predominantly Anglo-
Saxon and principally Protestant.
l . , - 5
i . - - - . -.
i
New. Orleans, and a narrow, 100-
mile long strip on either side of
the Mississippi River, was the( re
doubt of the Creole planters and
business men. Today, -New Orleans
is a center of world trade, and its
citizens and its outlook are cosmo
politan. Southwest Louisiana was, and is
today, a land apart It is the bayou
country, the land of Evangeline
and Roman Catholicism.
Settled by Cajuns
It was settled principally by the
Acadians (Cajuns), the . French
colonists of Nova Scotia who mi
grated to Louisiana about 1733.
The descendants of those settlers
today comprise one-fifth of the
state's population and the old fam
ily names and French language
are to be found everywhere along
the lush bayous.
Oddly enough, the first settlers
did ' not see this lushness of the
new land. They searched for the
golden treasure promised them by
Louisiana
Population 2,68331
(1950). -
. Area 38,523 sq. mi. (30th).
Flower Magnolia.
Capital Baton Rouge (pop.
125,629). ..
Large cities New Orleans
(570 445), Shreveport (127,
206), Lake Charles (41,272).
John Law; searched and died of
starvation in a land capable of
producing crops, any crop, in
startling abundance. They had
dreamed of easy wealth and turned
only grudgingly to the pedestrian
business of farming:
tit .,
' : .. iro .. -rf " -
Cottoa Replaces Gold
But the land was rich and the
golden dream was soon replaced
by the bkie of indigo, the white of
cotton, the green of sugar cane,
and the roiled red of the Missis
sippi. ' - .
Today, Louisiana ranks third in
the nation in the production of oil,
second in natural gas, fourth in
the production of salt, and is a
prime producer of the world's sul
phur. Its crops range from tung
nuts to sugar cane (90 per cent of
the U. S. total), to rice (second),
sweet potatoes, strawberries, cot
ton, oranges, and perinque to
bacco (it grows nowhere else in
the world). In addition, there are
16, million 'acres of hard and soft
woods and a seafood crop whose
annual value runs to $35 million.
It leads - all states, provinces of
Canada, and the Alaskan territory
in the production of furs.
'With ks great port at the mouth
of the Mississippi, Louisiana long
handled the commerce of the world
but was itself slow to enter into
me industrial revolution, it was
the : discovery of tremendous re
sources of oil and gas that parked
Louisiana's industrialization, and
in the early 1900's began the swing
away from , a strictly agrarian
economy.
Resources Fabulous
Today, the fantastic towers of
the .petro-chemical industry blos
som among the cane and cotton.
Giant aluminum facilities rise
along the banks of the Missis
sippi. The sooty spires of the car
bon black plants and the acrid
odors of the paper mills compete
with the towering pines.
If Louisiana was slow to embark
into its industrial revolution it now
shows no signs of stopping. It is
determined to make the most of
its fabulous resources and its posi
tion astride ' the gateway to the
' -.
.... . r- -
Americas ... and to prove that
old John Law wasn't so wrong.
Louisiana was admitted to the
Union AprU 8, 1812. ' New Or
leans became a major' port rapid
ly after the, War of 1812, and by
1840 was second only to New
York in tonnage. Baton Rouse
became the capital in 1849. Tn
Civil War ' crushed much of
Louisiana's growing economy.
New Orleans was occupied- by
Union troops early in the hostil
ities, but frequent rioting marred
the next several years while the
slavery question continued para-'
mount. Political upheavals con- .
tinued well into the 20th century
through the reign of Huey Long,
cne-time governor ' and then a '
U.S. senator, who was assassin
ated in 1935. " ,x
The state has 5,000 miles of,
mainline railroad, 25,000 miles
of highways, 5,000 miles of nav-i
igable waters and 60 airports. It :,
also has 16 institutions of higher'
education, - including Louisiana 'v
State University of Baton Rouge,
Tulane Unievrsity at: New Or-T
leans, Loyola University- at New'
Orleans, Dtllard " University at
New Orleans and Southern Unk "
versity at Baton Rouge.". -' ;
Numerous state parks, provide
hunting 'and fishing, and" semi
tropical Louisiana reputedly has '
a greater variety of game birds '
than any other state in the
Union. It is more and more tak- s
ing advantage of, and providing
protection, for the abundance of ,
natural resources with which it is .
blessed. . ' :
THE UNITED STATES'
Exclusive Series in
THE STATESMAN
ft
-
. ;-iii