History

If you are a certain age, you know Louis Prima’s songs and wild onstage antics from TV or Las Vegas. If you’re younger, you know his songs recorded by other artists, in TV commercials or as the swingin’ voice of King Louie in Disney’s “The Jungle Book.”

Fifty years ago, the world watched as two Americans set foot on the lunar surface. It seems like an otherworldly feat, but the journey to moon and back passed right through the Gulf Coast.

Most people don’t look for hidden pictures on the edges of books, but years ago “fore-edge paintings” were an elegant embellishment to printed works.

Few attractions excite the local memory like former lakefront amusement park Pontchartrain Beach. But, when was the park opened to all?

On July 28, the Christian Brothers celebrated 100 years of continuous ministry in Louisiana with a mass at St. Louis Cathedral followed by a gala party aboard the Steamboat Natchez and an exhibition preview party at the Old Ursuline Convent Museum.

Though New Orleans is affectionately nicknamed the “City that Care Forgot,” we do care a whole lot about our cocktails. So much so that we offer a daily Cocktail Tour.

This month some of New Orleans’ oldest attractions joined forces in a new effort. Seven museums in the French Quarter established the French Quarter Museum Association in an effort to elevate the profile of museums as an enriching cultural experience for locals and visitors alike.

With 300 years of rich culture, New Orleans has played an important role in America’s history. Beginning with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States secured the port of New Orleans and surrounding area, doubling the size of the U.S. at that time.

I finally admitted that we have outgrown our office. After months of searching for new digs, I thought of Baroness de Pontalba, perhaps New Orleans’ earliest woman entrepreneur. Born in 1798, she inherited a vast fortune at age 2 ½. Burdened with a failed marriage and salacious father-in-law who shot her four times, the Baroness was undaunted.

The Swedish invasion gripped New Orleans on Feb. 7, 1851. But it wasn’t a pop star, or a rock ‘n’ roll band – it was opera singer Jenny Lind, whose arrival at the port was met with such mania that she initially retreated back into the ship as the enthusiastic crowd rushed to greet her.

Before New Orleans’ founding in 1718, Native Americans traversed an overland route, or portage, connecting the arteries of Bayou St. John and the Mississippi River.

New Orleans-based photographer Michael P. Smith (1937-2008) documented the culture of his city, and one of his most popular subjects was the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

New Orleans’s Tricentennial is a fitting time to reflect on how the land Bienville called “la Nouvelle-Orléans” — a site originally settled by Native Americans, though long abandoned and considered inhospitable as a permanent settlement —transformed into one of North America’s most diverse cities.

In 1876, Father Peter Leonard Thevis promised God that if his parishioners were spared from the yellow fever epidemic, he would build a chapel. Today, the chapel in St. Roch Cemetery stands as a testament to God’s providence and a promise kept.

One of the most popular resources at The Historic New Orleans Collection is the Collins C. Dibbol Vieux Carré Digital Survey, which offers information on every block of the city’s oldest neighborhood, the French Quarter. This complimentary online resource includes maps, site plans, property records, photographs and more.

Housed in the oldest building on the Mississippi Delta, “The Church in the Crescent: Three Hundred Years of Catholicism in New Orleans” celebrates the city’s tricentennial through the eyes of faith.

The Office of Black Catholic Ministries cultivates the rich diversity of the black Catholic community in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Much of Louisiana experienced record-breaking cold temperatures and icy conditions last month, and New Orleans even saw two very light dustings of snow this winter.

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From 1850 until about 1990, the holiday season brought lavish decorations, toy lands, trim-the-tree displays and aisles of Christmas cards to Canal Street, the city’s premier shopping destination.

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New Orleans’ favorite pastry has been around longer than our city. French and Spanish colonists brought their version of beignets to the Louisiana territory; it was a dish made with a light dough full of yeast. Once here, the pastry has never been the same.

When Leona Tate approached McDonogh 19 on November 14, 1960, an angry crowd confronted her and the two other girls who would be the first African-American students to attend the New Orleans school.

Many who spent their college years around NOLA remember Fump and Manny’s on Tchoupitoulas Street, better known as F & M’s Patio Bar.

Twenty years after its inception, the red-light district known as Storyville was declining.

Storyville, the red light district that operated from 1898–1917 in New Orleans, lives prominently in the local imagination, but little of it remains in the historical record.

“History was slow here.”

As the summer drags on, many New Orleanians begin seeking air-conditioned shelter from the oppressive heat. But there are still plenty of reasons to get out and explore! The city’s oldest neighborhood boasts an array of options for outdoor and indoor fun, and the French Quarter Business Association has your ticket to savings.

Blue Star Museums offers U.S. military personnel and their families free admission to museums nationwide. In effect since 2010, the program is a collaboration among the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families and the Department of Defense.

During the Great Depression, life was hard for everyone, and Vernon Rudolph was no exception. But at least he had a job helping his Kentucky uncle run his store.