Let's Go Places: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

The last time that we talked, I had wrapped up a week in New Orleans and was on my way to Baton Rouge.  This is the story of what happened next.

What's In a Name?

I never questioned the name "Baton Rouge" until I was driving there when it dawned on me...rouge = red.  Red baton?  No, that didn't sound right.  Red stick?  Nah, couldn't be.

But it is!  When the French explorers made their way from Quebec to New Orleans, they saw a large red pole that marked the boundary between tribal hunting grounds, and the name "red stick" stuck.  

Let's Rate the Airbnb!

The unit was a small house in the Capital Heights neighborhood.

Pros:

• It was an entire house!!!  As one person I do not need an entire house, but I also don't mind it.
• It was very small, the exact right amount of space for one person.
• The neighborhood was quiet, and there were restaurants and a grocery store within walking distance.
• Nothing, I repeat nothing was wrong with it.

Cons:

• There is nothing negative that I can say about the unit, except that the dog gear made me miss my dog.

Something Silly:

Tell me that I was not at home without telling me that I was not at home...there are zero washers and dryers on porches where I live.

Speaking of not being at home, I got a taste of that the first night when the temperature dropped to...wait for it...32 DEGREES.  The Airbnb host messaged me to ask me to leave the taps dripping overnight.  You see, down in the swamp there are no basements, and houses are built a bit up off the ground, which both accommodates a bit of flooding and helps with air circulation in the summer.  The downside is that this leaves Louisiana pipes a lot more vulnerable than northern pipes to freezing.  I could feel how cold the floor was that night.

[Answer to your next question: I could not hear the dripping taps from the bedroom or the living room.]

Things That I Did in Baton Rouge

My #1 reason for going to Baton Rouge was to tour the capitol.  As you can see from the top picture in the post, Louisiana's capitol is hard to miss.  It's full Art Deco Skyscraper.

The focus of the tour was on a few bad events that have taken place in the building over the years.

Bad Thing #1: the death of Huey Long

If you enjoy seeing bullet holes in walls, the Louisiana capitol is here for you.  Huey Long was the former governor turned Senator who was responsible for the design of the capitol.  I had heard the name before, but did not realize that he was a Big Deal at the time.  

One night in 1935 he returned to his former workplace to hang out with the current governor and do government stuff.  His list of projects at the time included trying to remove a judge from the bench, and the judge's son-in-law felt a certain kind of way about that.  The son-in-law, a man named Dr. Carl Weiss, turned up at the capitol to express his feelings.  There is a dispute about what actually happened, but something caused the security team to pull out their guns and start shooting.  A lot.  Afterwards the investigators stopped counting when they got to 60 bullet holes in the walls.

Weiss died at the scene, and Long died a few days later.  As our guide explained, it is not correct to say that Long was assassinated, since the prevailing theory is that he was hit by a security guard's bullet.  There is a big question about whether Weiss was armed at the time - the security guards said yes, others said no.

In situations where no one can say for sure what happened, there isn't much that folks can do except to move on with life.  The governor was finding that tough to do with all of the bullet holes outside his office, and it was cost prohibitive to replace the marble walls.  They did the next best thing and swapped out the wall panels so at least there were fewer bullet holes near the governor's office.

Bad Thing #2: the 1970 bombing of the Senate chamber

In the same way that you can't remove bullet holes from marble, you also can't remove all traces of a bombing.  You can just be glad that it happened over the weekend and no one was injured.  A small object that is either a pencil or a small piece of wood remains embedded in the ceiling.

Ditto for a piece of wood in this pillar.

In spite of the grim history, the capitol tour was very interesting, and the building is very grand.  Afterwards I went to the observation deck and got a 360 view on the city.

After the capitol tour, I made the rounds of other downtown Baton Rouge attractions.  The first was the "starter" capitol that was in use until the big skyscraper was built.

Don't get me wrong, the skyscraper is impressive, but if you want a dome, then the old capitol is where it's at.

I had gotten burned out on plantation tours, but I had a bit of time left and I was hearing some hype about Magnolia Mound.  The mound part of the name comes from the fact that the house is on a hill, which was helpful with the ever present flooding situation.

The tour was great, for the reasons that the guides loved the house and the history, and for the artifacts from earlier times.  For example, if you wanted to read in bed in the old days, there were special reading lights for that.

And if you were having a big meal with a different wine for each course, even in the days of slavery no one had time to wash all of those wine glasses.  The place settings included DIY glass rinsers.

Food in Baton Rouge

After a week in Nola, my belly was ready for a break, so I ate lightly in Baton Rouge.  The one exception was lunch between the new and old capitols.  Sometimes I pick restaurants based on their names.

I had a brisket po'boy which fueled me for the day.

Mardi Gras in Baton Rouge

Mardi Gras decorations were a lot sparser than they were in Nola, but they were there.  My favorite was Mardi Spidey.

Thanks for the Good Times, Baton Rouge

And with that, it was time to come home.  I drove back to Nola, and got on a plane.

A few hours later, there was no place like home, even with the snow.

Thanks for the good times, Baton Rouge!  Who's been there?