A map showing the location of Baton Rouge relative to New Orleans, a distance of about 80 miles.
This day we took a side trip to Baton Rouge (w), Louisiana's capital city. Fun fact: When the French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville first came to the area, he found a large pole, painted red, which marked the boundary between the lands of the Houma and Bayagoula tribes. So he named the area Baton Rouge... which sounds a lot nicer than its English translation: red stick.
Here's a map:
A map showing the location of Baton Rouge relative to New Orleans, a distance of about 80 miles.
Honesty compels me to admit that this side trip was mostly for me. I like to visit state capitol buildings... although I confess I've been sporadic about it. I visited the Montana capitol building in Helena in 1975, when I was traveling around the country with friends. And I visited the Massachusetts capitol building in Boston when I was there with Terry in 2018. And now I've visited the Louisiana capitol building. Three down, 47 to go...
Actually, I visited two capitol buildings in Baton Rouge, the old one (1852 - 1932) and the new one (1932 - present). I started with the old capitol, which is now a museum:
The building is made of cream colored stone, with light brown trim. It resembles a fortress. It's surrounded by a wrought iron fence; two fence posts on either side of the gate are topped by images of eagles with their wings spread.
Terry elected to stay in the car, while Lucia and Esmond and I toured the museum. One interesting thing we saw was this statue of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville:
A bronze statue of Bienville, standing on a pedestal. Behind him, facing away from him on a lower portion of the pedestal, are a Native American chief and a Catholic priest.
We had already heard quite a bit about this gentleman in the various tours we had been taking - he was governor of French Louisiana four separate times between 1701 and 1743, and he founded the city of New Orleans in 1718. He was also the younger brother of Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, mentioned above. Incidentally, this statue is a copy of a monument to Bienville in New Orleans. I don't have a picture of the monument - actually, I never saw it - but here's one I found on the Internet:
The same statue, standing in a small park in the French Quarter.
Another interesting feature of the old capitol is this stained glass dome:
The picture is taken at the base of the dome, looking up. The upper portion of the dome is a mosaic made of multiple small panes of stained glass, in red, gold and blue, interspersed with a few panes of clear glass.
There was also this stained glass window in the former Senate chamber - which looks like it's been repurposed as a kind of auditorium:
The desks have been removed, and been replaced by wooden chairs set in semicircles, facing the front of the room. On the back wall is a large multi-colored stained glass window.
After leaving the old capitol, and after a brief stop for coffee, we went to the new capitol:
A gray stone building with a tall tower.
This time, everyone stayed in the car, and I went in alone. According to Wikipedia, this is the tallest state capitol building in the United States. The tower includes an observation deck, so I went up to the top for a bird's eye view of Baton Rouge.
One of the first things that caught my attention were these two sculptures, titled "Pioneers" and "Patriots," one standing on either side of the main entrance:
The Pioneers statue shows a woman in a long flowing robe, looking skyward, with her arms raised and her hands on her head. She stands on a pedestal which is surrounded by eight smaller figures.
The Patriots statue shows a man with a cape and a helmet, holding a large sword. He also stands on a pedestal surrounded by eight smaller figures.
I asked a couple of people inside the capitol about the significance of the statues, but no one seemed to know for sure. Later, I found this explanation on the website 225batonrouge.com:
We’ve always wondered about the massive statues in front of the Capitol Building. Why are they there, and what do they mean? We spoke with staffers at the Louisiana House of Representatives, and they filled us in that the statues are called the “Pioneers” and the “Patriots” and were built by Lorado Taft in the 1930s. But even they weren’t entirely sure what the statues mean or why they were built.
After reaching out to more historical institutions around town, a call to the Louisiana State Archives finally produced the answer: The statues serve as memorials to the settlers and defenders of Louisiana.
The “Pioneers” statue pays tribute to the Native Americans who originally inhabited the region, the French and Spanish colonists who explored the area in the 17th and 18th centuries and the Americans who made their homes here in the state’s earliest days. The “Patriots” monument honors those who died defending our home and rights.
(end of quote)
And now we know.
Another interesting feature of the capitol building is the large flight of stairs leading up to the front entrance. There are 49 steps, and each of the first 48 is engraved with the name of a state, with the date of its admission to the union. For example, here's the one for Louisiana:
A closeup view of several steps, including Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1821), and Indiana (1816).
Alaska and Hawaii, which weren't states yet when the buidling was built, were later added to the 49th step. I wonder what they'll do if Puerto Rico and/or Washington D.C. ever become states.
After leaving the capitol, we went to the Oxbow rum distillery. for a tour and tasting. I only have one picture from the place, which will require some explanation. In the main lobby, there's a large glass topped display case, full of old bits and pieces of machinery:
The picture is of an old rusted piece of machinery, perhaps a gear of some sort, partially buried in what appears to be sand.
As our guide explained, sugar is an essential ingredient in making rum, and Oxbow is unique among rum distilleries because it owns its own sugar plantation and refinery. So that's not sand filling the display case - it's raw sugar!
Our last stop of the day was the Tin Roof Brewery. No tours this time; we just sat at the bar and sampled the beer - well actually, Esmond and Lucia sampled the beer; I had a Coke and Terry had a berry flavored hard seltzer.
It turned out that the people at Oxbow and the people at Tin Roof are all good friends (the two places are only a few blocks apart). When we told the guys at Oxbow that our next stop would be Tin Roof, they said "We always go over there for a beer after work!" So we told the woman behind the bar at Tin Roof that her friends at Oxbow said hello.
After dinner at a very nice restaurant called The Chimes, we made one last stop in Baton Rouge. We went to a drive through daiquiri stand called the Swamp Shack. Drive through daiquiri stands are a peculiar (very peculiar) Louisiana institution. Allow me to quote once more from the 2001 trip log:
Not for nothing do they call New Orleans The Big Easy. It appears that in New Orleans (actually, all over Louisiana, so let's not just pick on N.O.), there are, of all things, drive-through daiquiri stands. Yes, you read that correctly. Just think - you can drive up, get yourself a daiquiri (or other frozen drink - Terry got a Long Island Iced Tea), and be on your way. Truly amazing. But don't they have open container laws in Louisiana? Yes, they do. But get this - when they give you the drink, it's in a cup with a lid on it, and the straw they give you is still in its paper wrapper. So, technically, it's not an open container! What you choose to do with it after you drive away is up to you. And of course, a passing policeman can't tell the difference between a daiquiri and a Pepsi, in a styrofoam cup. Ain't it terrific? It's also kind of scary.(end of quote)
So everyone got their daiquiris (except me, of course - I was driving), and we headed back to New Orleans.