Louisiana - the Child of the Mississippi (From the United States Series) - Yahoo Voices

On April 30, 1812, when Louisiana became a State, the purchased land was renamed the Territory of Missouri.

States acquired by the Louisiana Purchase included Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, part of Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, most of North and South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, part of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including New Orleans.

History:

Native American Indians originally inhabited the land that would become the State of Louisiana, including those from the Archaic Period who built the earliest mound complex in the United States, the Watson Brake on the Ouachito River near Monroe, a structure of eleven mounds constructed around 3500BC, and Poverty Point, the largest mound site in the State, that dates back to about 1500BC, in Epps.

Other early Indian cultures that resided in Louisiana included the Tchefuncte Culture, well known pottery builders, the Marksville Prehistoric Culture, the Baytown Pre-Columbian Era Culture, the Lake Cormorant Woodland Culture, the Coles Creek Culture with large population growths and simple elite politics pre-dating chiefdoms, the Plum Bayou Culture famous for building complex religious centers, the Fourche Maline Culture, the Caddoan Mississippi Culture with a continuously unbroken language spoken from Prehistoric times to Modern days, and the Plaquemine Culture known for large ceremonial sites and extensive maize agriculture.

In 1528 Spanish explorers became the first to reach Louisiana when they entered the mouth of the Mississippi River, but Spain had no strong desires to develop the area, and in the 17th Century France established several settlements in the State intending to control the region from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.

Settled in 1714 Natchitoches was the oldest French settlement in Louisiana becoming a major river port city with large plantations, and in the 1720s, German immigrants settled along the German Coast region above New Orleans.

Losing the 1754 to 1763 French and Indian War, France ceded most of its American territory to England, who began deporting its French inhabitants from Acadia in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New England, and they settled in Acadiana becoming the Cajuns.

The French kept New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, while the rest of Louisiana remained a Spanish Colony, and on October 1, 1800 France regained the State in the secret Third Treaty of San Ildefonso.

Expanding in 1709 with concessions allowing the importation of Blacks into the territory every year, although the practice was illegal in the United States, slavery was a major institution in the history of Louisiana and sugar became the predominant crop.

Haitians, especially from the French Colony of Saint Dominque, developed strong political, religious, and cultural influences on Louisiana during the early part of the 1700s, and with the Slave Revolt establishing Haiti as a country, massive amounts of multiracial immigrants poured into the State with approximately thirteen hundred Haitian refugees arriving in New Orleans between 1791 and 1803.

Ratifying the Treaty that purchased the Louisiana Territory, and doubled the size of the Country, the United States gained Louisiana on October 20, 1803, and represented by Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition fame, accepted possession on December 20, 1803.

Battle of New Orleans:

The Battle of New Orleans was known as the greatest American land victory of the War of 1812, and was faught from December 23, 1814 to January 26, 1815 to prevent England from invading the city and the territory the United States had gained with the Louisiana Purchase.

The contest began with the December 14, 1814 Battle of Lake Borgne when British forces attacked the American flotilla defending Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne, followed by the December 23, 1814 original skirmish nine miles south of New Orleans, the January 8, 1815 attack, and the January 9, 1815 British naval assault on Fort St. Natchez Steamboat, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, the Haunted History Tours of New Orleans, the Backstreet Cultural Museum, the Washington Artillery Park, the Edgar Degas House, the Odyssey's Shipwreck and Treasure Adventure, the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park, the 1850 House Louisiana State Museum, the Jackson Barracks Military Museum, Algiers Point, the New Orleans Ghost Tours, the St. Famous Cajun Performers Cajun Dave has played with include Doug Kershaw, Jimmy C. Joseph.

Lakes:

Louisiana contains more than 1300 lakes and some of the major ones include Lac des Allemands, the "Lake of the Germans," in St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest continuously operating Roman Catholic Cathedral in the United States, the Old City Hall Complex, known as The 1795-1799 Cabildo, where the Louisiana Purchase was signed, the 1791 Presbytere Museum built to match the Cabildo, the 1840s-built matching red brick, block long, four story buildings and oldest rented apartments of their type in the Country, the 1891 Jackson Brewery, the Toulouse Street Wharf, and the Natchez Steamboat make Jackson Square a well known painters, fortune tellers, mimes, tarot card readers, and street performers favorite gathering place.

Known for its drinking establishments, including the Pat O'Brien's Bar, where the popular Hurricane drink was invented, the Old Absinthe House, the Napolean House Bar, Johnny White's Sports Bar, Oz, the Bourbon Pub, the Cafe Lafitte In Exile, the Lafitte Blacksmith Shop, and the Southern Decadence Labor Day Weekend Festival make Bourbon Street the most famous road in the French Quarter.

Climate:

Louisiana has a Classic South Central United States humid subtropical climate, with long hot summers and short mild winters heavily influenced by the Gulf of Mexico, producing heavy rainfalls, tropical cyclones, strong thunderstorms for more than sixty days a year, more than twenty-five annual tornadoes, one of the fastest land erosion rates in the world, and devastating huricanes.

Hurricanes: Major hurricanes the State of Louisiana has experienced include the August 11, 1856 Last Resort Hurricane that completely destroyed Isle Derniere splitting the area into five islands, the June 27, 1957 Hurricane Audrey that struck from Grand Chenier to Cameron in southwest Louisiana, the September 9, 1965 Hurricane Betsy that struck New Orleans, the first hurricane in history to cause more than a billion dollars damages, the August 17, 1969 Hurricane Camille that struck the mouth of the Mississippi River with a 23.4 foot storm surge in low-lying regions of the State, the August 26, 1992 Hurricane Andrew that struck Morgan City, the French Quarter, and the Atchafalaya River Basin, the third most powerful Category 5 hurricane to make land fall in the United States during the 1900s, the October 3, 2002 Hurricane Lili, the costliest storm of the 2002 Atlantic Hurricane Season, that struck the State's barrier islands and marshes, the September 24, 2005 Hurricane Rita, the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico, that struck Johnson Bayou, and the fourth most intense Atlantic Hurricane ever recorded, and the September 1, 2009 Hurricane Gustav that struck Cocodrie in the southeastern part of Louisiana.

Hurricane Katrina:

With 125 mile an hour winds on August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina, the costliest, deadliest, and largest natural disaster in the history of the United States, and the sixth strongest hurricane ever recorded, struck the State of Louisiana near Buras-Triump washing away New Orleans, closing the city until October 2008, displacing about two million Gulf Region citizens, and killing more than 1,500 residents in its wake. Tammany Parish, a Dedicated Natural and Scenic River, the Bogue Falaya River on the Gulf Coastal Plain, the Tchefuncte River, an important waterway that drains into Lake Pontchartrain, the Amito River near Baton Rogue, the Blind River in St. Philip. Louisiana is also the only State with Parishes instead of Counties.

Topography:

Located in the Southern region of the United States and bordered by Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, and the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana can be divided into the higher hills of the Uplands Region and about 20,000 sqaure miles of Alluvial swamplands, beaches, coastal marshes, bayous, levees, inlets, and barrier islands along the Red River, the Ouachita River, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Name: Originally part of the Viceroyalty of New Mexico of the Mexican Empire, and known as the "Child of the Mississippi," Louisiana was named by French Explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier after the French King Louis XIV.

Louisiana Purchase:

By a treaty signed on April 30, 1803, and for fifteen million dollars, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, doubling the size of the Country and extending it from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, after Napolean Bonaparte abandoned his plans for establishing a French Empire in the New World, centered around Hispaniola, and had no further use for Louisiana but needed money for upcoming battles with England and European enemies, and on December 20, 1803 the French officially turned the territory over to the United States. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site, the Bayou Pierre Alligator Park, the Prairie Acadian Cultural Center, the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum, the Jungle Gardens Bird Sanctuary, the Tabasco Visitor Center and Pepper Sauce Factory, the Aviation Historical Museum, the Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo, the Saint Joseph Sugar Plantation, the Poverty Point State Historic Site, the Houmas House Plantation and Gardens, the Emerald Mound, the second largest Indian Mound in the United States, Tammany Trace, the Fontainebleau State Park, the Breton National Wildlife Refuge, the Global Wildlife Center, the 1787-built Destrehan Plantation, the oldest plantation in the Lower Mississippi Valley, the Los Islenos Museum, the Zoo of Acadiana, the Peveto Woods Birds and Butterly Sanctuary, the Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge, the Chimp Haven, the Vivian Alexander Gallery and Museum, America's most famous Faberge museum, and more.

New Orleans:

Famous for its distinct Spanish architecture, music, and the Mardi Gras, New Orleans is known as the most unique city in America.

The Crescent City was founded May 7, 1718 by the French on Chitimacha Indian land along the Mississippi River, between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne, and was known as La Nouvelle- Orleans.

A major sugar and cotton plantation site, with a well known role in the Atlantic Slave Trade, and ceded to Spain by the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the Big Easy was sold as part of the Louisiana Purchase to the United States in 1803.

During the 1830s and 1840s New Orleans was the wealthiest, and third most heavily populated American city, containing about 350,000 slaves that generated more money for the city than anywhere else in the Deep South.

New Orleans was captured early in the Civil War and avoided much of the destruction suffered by other places during that time.

Readmitted back into the Union in 1868, along with the rest of the State of Louisiana, New Orleans experienced the 1866 Mechanics Institute Riot, the nationwide Panic of 1873, and the destruction of being washed away by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

New Orleans is the home of the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve, the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge, twenty National Register of Historic Districts, and fourteen local historic districts. The unique New Orleans musical heritage includes Jazz, Brass Bands, Dixieland, Cajun, Zydeco, the Delta Blues, Rock and Roll, Rhythem and Blues, Funk, Bounce Hip Hop, Cowpunk Southern Rock, Sludge Metal, Heavy Metal, Hardcore Punk, and Doom Metal.

Well known foods that originated in New Orleans include beignets, fried pastries, cafe au laits, Po'Boys, Muffaletta Sandwiches, crawfish, etouffees, gumbos, jambalayas, Red Beans and Rice, and Praline Candies.

New Orleans has one of the largest and busiest ports in the world, and has been the home of major industries including sugar, cotton, oil refining, petrochemical production, natural gas production, education, health care, manufacturing, transportation, and tourism.

Major Corporations that have been found in New Orleans include the Northrop Grumman Ship Systems Company, the Bisso Towboat Company, Trinity Yachts, Expeditors International, the International Coffee Corporation, the Transoceanic Shipping Company, Folgers Coffee, the West Hackberry and Bayou Choctaw Petroleum Reserve Storage Facilities, the Exxon, BP, Texaco, Shell, Conoco, and Chevron Crude Oil Pipeline, the Dow Chemical Company, the Entergy Power Generation Facility, the Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Exploration Unit, Rolls-Royce, AT&T, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Harrah's Entertainment, Zatarains, and the Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits Restaurants.

Major motion pictures that have been at least partly filmed in New Orleans include The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, All The King's Men, Runaway Jury, The Pelican Brief, Glory Road, Last Holiday, and Deja Vu.

New Orleans operates three streetcar lines, the Riverfront Line from Esplanade Street through the French Quarter to Canal Street, the Canal Street Line, and the St. John the Baptist, Saint Charles, and Tangipahoa Parishes, Prien Lake southwest of Lake Charles, Sabine Lake, with Pleasure Island and accommodations for more than one hundred sailboats, Lake St. Brooks, Cleaner, Wonderful World, Year One, Straw Dogs, The Mist, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, and more.

Popular Shreveport area Attractions include the African American Heritage Trail, the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, the Barnwell Memorial Garden and Art Center, the Academy of Childrens Theatre, Artspace Shreveport, the Cinco de Mayo Fiesta Shreveport, the Mudbug Madness Crawfish Celebration, Mardi Gras, the Gardens of the American Rose Center, the Touchstone Wildlife and Art Museum, Chimp Haven, the National Chimpanzee Sanctuary, the 8th Air Force Museum, the Pioneer Heritage Center, and more.

Lafayette:

Established on the Vermilion River in 1821 by Acadian settlers and known as Vermilionville, then renamed in 1884 as Lafayette, major influences on the city's economy have included agriculture, natural gas, petroleum, health care, government, manufacturing, education, and information technology.

Offering the Isaac Verot Coulee, Coulee des Poches, the Coulee Mine, the Coulee Ile des Cannes waterways, and the center of the Louisiana Cajun and Creole cultures, Lafayette is located on the West Gulf Coastal Plain in the Atchafalaya Basin and on the Louisiana Prairie Terrace.

Popular Lafayette area Attractions include the Acadiana Center For The Arts, the Alexandre Mouton House Museum, the Acadian Village, the Children's Museum of Acadiana, Cypress Lake, the Heymann Performing Arts Center, Cite des Arts, the Jean Lafitte National Park Acadian Cultural Center, the Lafayette Natural History Museum and Planetarium, the National Wetlands Research Center, the reconstructed 1765 to 1890 Vermilionville Settlement, the Zoo of Acadiana, the Acadiana Film Festival, the Cajun Heartland State Fair, the Second Saturday Artwalk, the Crouchstock Music Festival, the Festivals Acadiens et Creoles, the Le Festival de Mardi Gras a Lafayette, the Festival International de Louisiane, the MechaCon Anime, Transformers, and Japanese Cultural Convention, the Childrens Movies in the Parc Series,and Cajun food, one of the most famous regional cuisines in the United States, featuring such items as etouffees, jambalayas, and crawfish.

Lake Charles:

Known as the "Festival Capital of Louisiana" Lake Charles is a major educational and cultural center for the Acadiana Region and has a large Cajun culture.

Lake Charles offers more than seventy-five annual festivals including the Cajun Music and Food Festival, the Celtic Nations Heritage Festival, the Marshland Festival, the International Food and Music Festival, the Gallery Promenade Arts Showcase, the Red, White, Blue, and You July 4 Celebration, the Veterans Day Parade, the Southwest Louisiana Christmas Lighting Festival, the Con du Lac Louisiana Sci-Fi Exposition, and the most popular one of all known as the two week long Contraband Days celebrating Jean Lafitte.

Located on the Calcasieu River the English and Contraband Bayous can be found running through Lake Charles.

First settled in the 1760s by the French the Lake Charles area was the home of many Native American Indian tribes and was known as Charles Town.

With many Victorian mansions Lake Charles was incorporated March 7, 1861 as Charleston and was heavily involved on both sides during the Civil War.

Major industries found in Lake Charles include lumber, shipbuilding, medicine, gaming, education, petrochemical refining, and tourism.

Major Corporations that have been located in Fort Charles include PPG Industries, the Citgo Petroleum Corporation, Lake Charles Cogeneration, Leucadia National, ConocoPhillips, Northrop Grumman, Aeroframe, and a Trunkline LNG terminal.

The Great Fire of 1910 destroyed most of Lake Charles, and rebuilt, the Parish was divided into the Beauregard Parish, the Allen Parish, the Jefferson Davis Parish, the Cameron Parish, and the Calcasieu Parish.

Lake Charles was devastated by the September 24, 2005 Category Three Hurricane Rita and by the June 20, 2006 Citgo Petroleum Plant in Sulpher releasing about 18,000 barrels of oil into the Calcasieu River.

Popular Lake Charles area Attractions include the Mardi Gras Museum of Imperial Calcasieu, the Black Heritage Art Gallery, the Children's Museum of Lake Charles, the Imperial Calcasieu Museum, the Historic City Hall Arts and Cultural Center, the Banner Musical Series, and the Mardi Gras.

Gretna: Settled in 1836 on the west bank of the Mississippi River across from New Orleans, and known as Machanicsham, Gretna grew with expanding railroads including the Texas and Pacific Railway, the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Incorporated in 1913, and the Seat of Jefferson Parish, Gretna is the home of the famous Zatarains Spices Company that began operations in 1889.

Popular Gretna area Attractions include the 1857-built James Gallier House, known as one of the best Small Victorian Houses of post-Civil War New Orleans, and the 1831-built Hermann-Grima Mansion, both of which are National Society of The Colonial Dames of America sites, the Odysseys Shipwreck and Treasure Adventure, the German-American Cultural Center, the Mini-Military Museum, the Delta Queen Riverboat, Algiers Point, the Lincoln Beach Amusement Park, the National Katrina Tour-America's Greatest Catasrophe, the LeMieux Art Gallery, and the Confederate Museum of the Louisiana Historical Association.

Cajun Dave Becnel:

Cajun Dave Becnel is one of the most popularly well known Cajun Musicians to come out of the New Orleans area, Gretna to be exact, and is a MUST see show for his legions of fans and those who soon will be after their first time watching this Entertainer perform.

More than his talented abilities to play some forty different musical instruments including the fiddle, the guitar, the banjo, the drums, the scrubboard, the squeezbox, the dulcimer, the bass, the ukelele, the Slide Flute, and anything else he can get his hands on, this extremely popular Performer is a major Lead Singer with an eight octave vocal range, and more than capable background harmony singer as well.

A talented Songwriter Cajun Dave has performed with a Who's Who list of notable Acts including Country Music Legends Jack Greene, Grandpa Jones, Waylon Jennings, Porter Wagoner, Ray Price, Roy Clark, Johnny Paycheck, and Narvel Felts. With fifty-three levee breaks Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal, the 40 Argent Canal levees, Saint Tammany Parish, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Saint Charles Parish, Plaquemines Parish, and Tangipakoa Parish.

Mardi Gras:

Arriving in the United States sixty miles down river from New Orleans on March 3, 1699 as a Equestrian Property And Land For Sale Tipton County TN French Catholic tradition, Mardi Gras is celebrated on Fat Tuesday in a festive season typically occurring in February, immediately before Lent.

A major part of the Big Easy, and the slogan "leissez les bon temps rouler," meaning "let the good times roll," Mardi Gras celebrants in the Uptown and Mid-City districts along St. John the Baptist Parish west of New Orleans, Lake Salvador and Lake Catouatchie southwest of New Orleans, Lake Bistineau, the "Big Broth," in northwestern Louisiana, known for the assortment of plants found in the water, Lake Bruin, a Mississippi River oxbow, U-shaped lake in Tensas Parish, Calcasieu Lake in Cameron Parish, where a rare albino bottlenose dolphin has been spotted, Cane River Lake, in the historic Natchitoches District, famous for the many plantations built on its banks, Caney Lake at the Jimmie Davis State Park in Jackson Parish, the Upper and Lower Caney Lakes in the Kisatchie National Forest, Catahoula Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake in the State, found in La Salle Parish, the largest moist soil unit in the United States, Lake Charles, averaging a depth of only five feet, with a deep channel for passing ships down the middle of the lake, Cross Lake, with the Ford Park Recreational Facility, near Shreveport, False River Lake, once the main channel of the Mississippi River in southeastern Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, Grand Lake in Cameron, the largest Parish in the State based on land area, Lake Maurepas, a popular boating location halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Murphy Lake, at a three foot elevation, in Iberville Parish, Raccourci Old River Lake, with abundant Crappie fishing, in Pointe Coupee Parish, Lake Peigneur, near the northernmost tip of Vermilion Bay, in southern Louisiana, where a Texaco Oil Company oil rig was faulted for destroying the Jefferson Island Salt Mine on November 20, 1980, Lake Pontchartrain, the second largest saltwater lake in the Country, and Louisiana's largest lake containing an area of about 630 square miles in the St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street, eat and drink heavily, dress in elaborate specialized costumes, wear masks, attend Balls, ride in horse parades and on krewe floats, throw beads, Zulu coconuts, and large coins known as doublooms, feast on moon pies and King Cakes, and women show their breasts in traditions dating back to medieval France with activities formally ending at midnight when Rex and His Royal Consort, the King and Queen of Mardi Gras, and the Mistick Krewe of Comus, New Orleans oldest active Carnival organization, meet at the end of their Masked Balls, and mounted police officers clear Bourbon Street where most out-of-town revelers gather to celebrate.

Cajuns:

Derived from Acadian exiles, and possessing their own unique French dialect and cultural traits, Cajuns are a large portion of the population of southern Louisiana and were officially recognized by the Federal government in 1980 as a National Ethnic Group.

First arriving in Louisiana on February 27, 1765, and settling around Vermilion Bay, the Cajuns participated in the failed Rebellion of 1768 to prevent France from ceding Louisiana to Spain.

Cajun music featuring the fiddle and the accordian, rural Cajun food, some times spicy and not wasting any parts of the animals it is made from, famous Mardi Gras celebrations, Cajun faith healers known as Traiteurs, beliefs in Rougarous and werewolves, Coup de Mains, yearly local economic celebrations, festive street dancers, and Cajun and Zydeco festivals are all traditional features of the Cajun culture.

Creoles:

Creoles are mixed-breed descendents of colonial Spanish, French, African, German, and Native American Indians, from the time Louisiana became a United States possession through the Louisiana Purchase, and was a term applied to French Whites, their descendents, and to slaves born in the State.

Many Creole communities, and their surviving plantations, can be found in Louisiana including those in Natchitoches, Derry, Cloutierville, Natchez, Gorum, Isle Brevelle, and in the Cane River area.

Gumbo, a traditional Creole dish, jambalaya, jazz music, zydeco music, and scrub board instruments are all products of the Creole culture.

Acadians:

Originating in various regions of France Acadians are descedents of 17th Century French Colonists from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Maine that were expelled from those areas from 1755 to 1763 during the Seven Years War. Established in 1607 on the island of Ile-Ste-Croix between New Brunswick and Maine, and known as Port Royal, Acadia was the first permanent French settlement in North America. Catherine in Orleans Parish that was settled for trappers, railroad workers, and fishermen, Sandy Lake in Catahoula Parish, Spanish Lake in the Bluff Swamp and Alligator Bayou, part of the Bluff Swamp Wildlife Refuge and Botanical Gardens, and the Rigolets Strait that supplies water from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Pontchartrain north of Fort Pike.

Rivers:

Major rivers found in the State of Louisiana include the Abita River in St. Failing to defeat the American forces England withdrew and the battle ended with the Treaty of Ghent.

Native Americans:

Native American Indian tribes that were located in Louisiana included the Acolapissa, the Adai, the Alabama, the Apalachee, the Talimali, the Atakapa, the Avoyel, the Natchez, the Caddo, the Bayougoula, the Mobile, the Biloxi, the Chatot, the Chawasha, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, the Chitimacha, the Doustioni, the Koasati, the Coushatta, the Koroa, the Houma, the Mugulasha, the Pakana, the Muskogee, the Creek, the Ofo, the Tunica, the Opelousa, the Ouachita, the Pascagoula, the Quapaw, the Quinipissa, the Souchitioni, the Tangipahoa, the Tawasa, the Washa, the Yatasi, the Mossy Grove Indian Culture, the Fourche Maline Indian Culture, the Tchefuncte, the Hopewell, the Taensa, and more.

National Parks:

Louisiana contains National Park sites, a National Forest, 48 rivers, bayous, and streams that are protected against human intervention including the Cane River Creole National Historical Park in Natchitoches Parish with sixty-seven locations, the oldest community in the Louisiana Purchase Territory, that protects Creole and multi-cultural history sites of the area, the Magnolia Plantation on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail in Derry, the Oakland Plantation in the Cane River National Heritage Area, the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in New Orleans, the communites of Barataria, Crown Point, Acadiana, Lafayette, and in Saint Bernard Parish along the Mississippi River Delta Region, the Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center in Thibadoux, the Prairie Acadian Cultural Center in Eunice, the Barataria Preserve in Marrero, the Chalmette Monument in New Orleans, the French Quarter, the Los Adeas State Historic Site, and old capital of Tejas, located on the New Spain northeastern frontier from 1729 to 1770, including the San Miguel de Linares de los Adaes and presidio, and the Nuesta Senora del Pilar de Los Adaes, the 1716 Fort Jean St. Statehood:

Containing a rich mixture of Spanish, French, Haitian, Creole, African, Cajun, and many other cultural influences, Louisiana was admitted to the Union on April 30, 1812 as the 18th State, and is known in Creole as "Leta de la Lwizyan". Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865.

Popular movies that have been at least partly filmed in Shreveport include The Guardian, Blonde Ambition, The Longshots, Factory Girl, Mr. Louis Cathedral, Preservation Hall, the Natchez Steamboat, the New Orleans Mint, the New Orleans Collection Museum, the National World War Two Museum, the Confederate Memorial Hall, the Contemporary Arts Center, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Audubon Nature Institute, the Audubon Zoo, the New Orleans Botanical Garden, the Honey Island Swamp, the Mardi Gras, the Chalmette Battlefield and National Cemetary, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the New Orleans Voodoo Festival, Southern Decadence, and many more that help keep New Orleans one of the Top Ten most frequently visited cities in the Country.

Baton Rouge:

Located on Istrouma Bluff, overlooking the Mississippi River Delta, Louisiana's capital city is the ninth largest port in the United States and is a major petrochemical and industrial center for the southern part of the Country.

Inhabited since about 8000BC, and known as the "Red Stick," Baton Rouge was originally settled in 1699 by French explorers and Cajuns exiled from Acadia.

France, Spain, England, the Florida Republic, the Confederate States, Louisiana, and the United States have all governed Baton Rouge.

Incorporated on January 16, 1817 Baton Rouge became the State Capital in 1849.

Major industries that have been located in Baton Rouge include steamboats, transportation, petrochemicals, technology, cargo, agriculture, oil refining, government, film making, and health care.

Major Corporations found in Baton Rouge include ExxonMobile, the Dow Chemical Company, the NanYa Technology Corporation, Shaw Construction, and the Our Lady of the Lake Research Hospital.

Baton Rouge contains many skyscrapers including the Louisiana State Capital, the tallest State Capital building in the United States, One American Place with a mirrored glass exterior, the JP Morgan Chase Tower, the Marriott Hotel Baton Rouge, the Shaw Plaza, the Saint Joseph's Cathedral, the Hilton Capital Center, and the Sheraton Baton Rouge Convention Center Hotel.

Popular Baton Rouge area Attractions combine a mix of Cajun, Creole, and other cultures together to offer the Shaw Center For The Arts, the Louisiana Art and Science Museum, the Baton Rouge Gallery, the Baton Rouge River Center, well known Mardi Gras celebrations, the FestforAll, Louisiana Earth Day Events, the Red Stick International Animation Festival, the Old Louisiana State Capital Complex, the Magnolia Mound Plantation, the Nottoway Plantation, the Louisiana State Museum, the Louisiana Naval Museum, the Baton Rouge Zoo, the Louisiana State Archive and Research Library, the Bluebonnet Swamp Interpretive Center, the USS Kidd Fletcher Class Destroyer Battleship, and more.

Shreveport:

Founded in 1836 by the Shreve Town Company that opened up the Red River, the Ohio River, and the Mississippi River to steamboat navigation, and the Texas Trail into the Republic of Texas and into Mexico, Shreveport is the ninety-ninth largest American city. Shreveport is the home of the Ark-La-Tex Region where Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas come together, in the northwest part of the State, in the Piney Woods Forest that contains several bayous.

Known as the "Ratchet City," the area that became Shreveport was sold to settlers in 1835 by the Caddo Indians, and Caddo Parish, containing the town, was divided off of the Natchitoches Parish.

Incorporated March 20, 1839 major industries that have been located in Shreveport include steamboat commerce, cotton, agriculture, the Slave Trade, cargo, the railroad, shipping, riverboat gambling casinos, a General Motors automobile manufacturing plant, oil production, gasoline production, health care, film making, and musical entertainment, featuring such venues as the Louisiana Hayride Radio Show, where world famous Performers have appeared including Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, and the "Tall Texan" Billy Walker, who along with his wife Bettie, Danny Patton, and Charles Lilley were tragically killed in an automobile crash returning back to Nashville, Tennessee after performing a show in Foley, Alabama on May 21, 2006. Cajun Dave has also played with Hank Williams immensely talented Grandson Hank Williams III and many other top of the line Entertainers.

Some of Cajun Dave's television credits include You Can Be A Star, CMT Videos on The Nashville Network, Hot Cajun Nights, The Carl Tipton Bluegrass Show Nashville, Tennessee, the Bobby Cure Sumertime Blues Band Talent Show of New Orleans, Studio In The Country Bogalousa, Louisiana, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and more.

Known for such crowd pleasing Cajun Classic Standards as Cajun Angel, Walking In The Bayou, and Sweet Dreams of Louisiana, Cajun Dave's musical talents include Cajun, Country, Rock, Blues, Folk, Bluegrass, Zydeco, Swamp Pop, International, Doo-Wop, Mardi Gras, and creative original music.

With a career that has spanned more than thirty years on the National level, and now based out of Florida, Cajun Dave's tour schedule often takes him back to play shows in New Orleans, on Bourbon Street, in the French Quarter, and all around the Country at major festivals, Bike Weeks, Fund Raisers, Amusement Parks, Charity Events, and major concert venues.

Series:

The United States Series I am writing here on associatedcontent.com provides an indepth look at all fifty States that make up this GREAT Country of ours and their five largest cities.

The current list of Articles for the United States Series I have published to date includes:

So This Is Sweet Home Alabama

Alaska - The Land of the Midnight Sun

Arizona - The Valley of the Sun

Arkansas - People of the South Wind

California - The Golden Gate, Earthquakes and Grizzly Bears

Colorful Colorado - The Rocky Mountains, Skiing, and High Technology Connecticut - The Land of Steady Habits

Delaware - The Small Wonder

Florida - The Snowbirds R Us State

Georgia - Goobers, Peaches, and Buzzards

Hawaii - Luaus, Pinepples, and Beaches

Idaho - The Gem of the Mountains and Potatoes State

Illinois - Mining, Factories, and Labor Unions

Indiana - The Land of Steel and Ducks

Iowa - The Ethanol and Food Capital of the World

Bleeding Kansas America's Flattest State

Kentucky - The Land of Tomorrow

Maine - Lobsters, Lighthouses, and Black Bears

Maryland - The "Oh Say Can You See" State

Massachusetts - The Cradle of Liberty

Michigan - The Automotive State

Minnesota - The Bread and Butter State

Mississippi - Where Cotton Was King

Comments from readers are always welcome so let me know what you think about these Articles.

Sources:

This article was compiled from many websites that provide much more information about Louisiana including: neworleansonline.com, baton-rouge.com, shreveport.com, lafayettetravel.com, visitlakecharles.org, and gretnala.com

Note:

The information pertaining to Cajun Dave Becnel was used by permission of Cajun Dave.

. With the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht France ceded Acadia to the British who ordered its residents to pledge allegiance to England, and fight against their own family members in French territory, but they refused and were forcibly removed from Acadia settling in Louisiana and becoming the Cajuns. Attractions:

Popular Attractions found in Louisiana include the Confederacy of Cruisers Bike Tours through historic New Orleans neighborhoods, the Audubon Zoo, the National World War Two Museum, the Hurricane Katrina Tours, the French Quarter, Mardi Gras, the Historic New Orleans Walking Tours, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, Canal Street, the Musee Conti Wax Museum, the Audubon Park, Bourbon Street, the Natchez Steamboat Cruises, the Lalaurie Mansion, the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, the Louisiana Children's Museum, the New Orleans Spirit Tours, the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve, the Confederate Memorial Musum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the S.S. MAY GOD REST YOUR SOULS MY DEAREST SPECIAL FRIENDS! I know you sing in a much better place now, and although you may be gone you will never be forgotten, and you are loved more with each passing day.

Popular casinos found in the Shreveport area include the Boomtown Casino, Diamond Jacks Casino, the Isle of Capri, Harrahs Louisiana Downs, the Sam's Town Casino, and the Eldorado Casino.

Shreveport was the capital city of Louisiana from 1863 to 1865 during the Civil War, and a Confederate stronghold, where several events of the war continued for many weeks in the Trans- Mississippi Theater of the Confederate Army after Robert E. Davis Smith, the Rebel State Historic Site and Louisiana Country Music Museum in Marthaville, the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site, Louisiana's oldest State Park Site, that highlights the Bayou Teche Region, including the 1815 Maison Olivier Plantation, a 1790 Acadian cabin, and an Acadian farmstead, the Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site, including an 1815 Federal-Greek Revival-style main house, three summer houses, a Greek-style doctor's office, and the Martha Turnbull Gardens, one of the South's most intact plantations, in St. John the Baptist Parish, the Atchafalaya River that provides significant shipping channels for Louisiana, the Cajun Country, and the Heart of Acadiana, the Red River, the Mississippi River, the Chetimaches River near Bayou Lafourche, the first settlement of Acadians in southern Louisiana, the Boeuf River with a name that means "the bull," the Tensas River in East Carroll Parish, the Black River, the Ouachita River, the Calcasieu River on the Gulf Coast with the Atakapa Indian name of "kathash," and "yok," meaning "the eagle's cry," in the Neutral Ground Area, the Little River, the Catahoula River, the Comite River that frequently floods outlying areas of Baton Rouge, the Dugdemona River in the Kitsatchie National Forest, the New River in Ascension Parish, the Tangipahoa River through the Percy Quin Reservoir, the Pearl River near the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the Sabine River forming part of the boundary between Texas and Louisiana, and part of the early 1800s Mexican-American International Border, and known as the dividing line separating the New Southwest from the Old South, the Tickfaw River in Livingston Parish, and the Vermilion River that was formed from the bottom up, making it a "tidal river" of Vermilion Bay.

Bayous:

Famous for its many bayous, especially Bayou Teche that is closely associated with the Cajun and Creole cultures of the Gulf Coast Region centered in New Orleans, Louisiana bayous can be stagnant streams and rivers with poorly defined shores, marshes, wetlands, or other bodies of extremely slow moving water.

French Quarter:

The French Quarter is the oldest and most famous neighborhood in New Orleans, and the centerpiece of the area the city was built around in 1718, when Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded the town known then as the Vieux Carre, meaning Old Square. A National Historic Landmark the French Quarter's boundaries are defined as all the land located between the Mississippi River, from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue, and inland to North Rampart Street, a total area consisting of seventy-eight square blocks.

Destroyed by the 1788 Great Fire of New Orleans, and by a major fire in 1794, most French Quarter architecture was constructed during the Spanish ruling period of New Orleans, and was rebuilt with colorful rooftops and elaborate ironworks-decorated balconies and galleries.

After the signing of the Louisiana Purchase English Americans, and French-speaking Creole descendents of the original settlers of the area, were the first occupants of the French Quarter.

Containing the well known Moon Walk Scenic Boardwalk, the Woldenberg Riverfront Park, and the Aquarium of the Americas, popular French Quarter Attractions include Jackson Square, an open park found in the center of the French Quarter, overlooking the Mississippi River across Decatur Street, that was named for Andrew Jackson after the Battle of New Orleans, and the Place d'Armes Hotel.

The 1850 St. Newman, Eddie Raven, Jo-El Sonnier, Rufus Thibodeaux, The Mamou Playboys, The Zydeco Playboys, and the Porchdogs. Mary's Assumption Church, the 1826-built Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, the New Orleans Botanical Garden, the Louis Armstrong Park, the New Orleans African American Museum, the Riverwalk Marketplace, the Delta Queen Cruises on the Mississippi River, the Roots of New Orleans Heritage City Tours, Lake Pontchartrain, the second largest saltwater lake in the United States, the Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts, the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, the Gardens of the American Rose Center, the 8th Air Force Museum of World War One, the Ark-La-Tex Antique and Classic Vehicle Museum, the Confederate Navy Yard, the Old State Capital Complex in Baton Rouge, the Magnolia Mound Plantation, the Baton Rouge Zoo, the USS Kidd Veterans Memorial Museum, the Louisiana Art and Science Museum, the Children's Museum of Acadiana, the Lafayette Natural History Museum and Planetarium, the Louisiana Boardwalk, the Ark-La-Tex Mardi Gras Museum, the Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge, the Cajun Country Swamp Tours, the Mini-Military Museum in Gretna, the Mardi Gras Museum of Imperial Calcasieu, the Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site, the Rip Van Winkle Heritage Museum and Research Center, the Champagnes Swamp Tours, the Fort St. the 1805-built Kate Chopin House that illustrates classic examples of early 19th Century Antebellum homes of the area, the Poverty Point National Prehistoric Monument on the Macon Ridge in Epps, consisting of six curving earthworks including a bird mound, a ballcourt mound, and the Dunbar and Lower Jackson Mounds that were built between 1650 and 700BC by Archaic Poverty Point Native American Indians and known as the "Largest and Most Complex Late Archaic Earthwork Occupation and Ceremonial Site Yet Found In North America," the Sabine River and Bayou National Wild and Scenic River in Winn Parish, the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park in the Treme neighborhood, and the Louis Armstrong Park near the French Quarter, containing the 1819-built Preservation Hall Number Four, the oldest Masonic Lodge in the State of Louisiana.

Kitsatchie National Forest:

Headquartered in Pineville the Kisatchie National Forest, located in seven central and northern Louisiana Parishes containing forty recreational sites, provides backpacking, mountain biking, fishing, hunting, hiking, swimming, and more than one hundred miles of trails including the Wild Azalea National Recreation Trail, the Claiborne Trail, the Valentine Lake Trail, the Kincaid Lake Trail, the Turkey Pen Trail, the Big Branch Trail, the Fullerton Mill Trail, the Enduro Trail, the Ouiska Chitto Trail, the Ol Sarge Trail, the Lamotte Creek Trail, the Indian Ridge Trail, the Caroline Dorman Horse Trail, the Longleaf Trail, the Dogwood Interpretive Trail, the US Army's World War Two Camp Claiborne and Camp Livingston, and many species of wildlife including Wild Turkeys, Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers, and Catahoula Hummingbirds.

State Parks:

Louisiana offers the following State Parks known as the Bayou Segnette State Park and nature trails on the west bank of the Mississippi River in Westwego, the Lake Bruin State Park with the nearby Winter Quarters State Historic Center and Plantation in the northeastern part of the State, the Chemin-A-Haut State Park and high bluffs overlooking Bayou Bartholomew, the longest bayou in the world, with more than one million acres, and one of Louisiana's first State Parks, in northern Morehead Parish, the Lake Claiborne State Park in northwestern Louisiana, the Chicot State Park and Wildlife Refuge in Ville Platte, the Lake D'Arbonne State Park in the Kitsatchie National Forest, in Union Parish, the Cypremort Point State Park on Vermilion Bay, the Fairview-Riverside State Park and 1830s-built Otis House Museum in Madisonville, the Lake Fausse Pointe State Park by the Atchafalaya Basin, the North Toledo Bend State Park and Reservoir in Zwolle, the Fontainebleau State Park and 1829-built Sugar Mill Ruins on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain, in St. Baptiste State Historic Site and frontier military outpost in the Cane River National Heritage Area, the Fort Jesup State Historic Site built by Zachery Taylor in Sabine Parish in 1822, after the siging of the Florida Purchase Treaty, that established law and order in the Neutral Ground area between eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Francisville, the Los Adaes State Historic Site, the Tejas capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain's northeastern frontier from 1729 to 1770, and the Winter Quarters State Historic Site and 1805 cotton plantation on Lake St. Bernard State Park and 1818 Fort Pike State Historic Site built to guard against British reinvasions of the United States, the Sam Houston Jones State Park in the Central Migratory Flyway containing about two hundred species of birds, the Jimmie Davis State Park on the forested peninsula of Caney Creek Lake, the North and South Toledo Bend State Parks and narrow waterway formed in 1880 by extensive flooding and a massive log jam on the Red River, and the Tickfaw State Park, Forest, and Nature Center located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

State Historic Sites:

State Historic Sites found in Louisiana include the Audubon State Historic Site, Oakley Plantation, and forest where Audubon created thirty-two of his famous paintings, the Mansfield State Historic Site that preserves the location of the April 8, 1864 Civil War Battle of Mansfield where Confederate forces defeated the Union Army in the Red River Campaign delaying their entry into Texas, the 1825-1844 Centenary State Historic Site, that Equestrian Property For Sale Tipton County TN was originally known as the College of Louisiana, with interpretive educational programs and guided tours, the Marksville State Prehistoric Indian Site and Burial Mounds, the 1822 Fort Jesup State Monument built to protect the United States border with Spainish lands and return order to the No Man's Land Area of Louisiana, the Plaquemine Lock State Historic Site that provided a waterway passage between southwest Louisiana, Texas, the Mississippi River, and the Atchafalaya Basin, the Fort Pike State Historic Site, and intact citadel, that guarded the Rigolets Pass, the 1822 Fort Jackson and Fort Toulouse State Historic Sites north of New Orleans, the Port Hudson State Historic Site north of Baton Rouge, the location of the longest held Civil War siege, the Poverty Point Prehistoric National Monument on the Macon Ridge in Epps, the Locust Grove Plantation State Historic Site and Cemetary owned by Confederate President Jefferson Davis sister Anna E. Charles Line, the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the United States, and each one of their cars is a historic landmark.

Popular New Orleans area Attractions include the fifty-one floor tall One Shell Square skyscraper, the tallest in Louisiana, the French Quarter, Bourbon Street, Jackson Square, the St. Tammany, Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany Parish, the Poverty Point Reservoir State Park with Prehistoric earthworks and Indian mounds monument on Macon Ridge in Epps, the Grand Isle State Park on the only inhabited barrier island in Louisiana, the Hodges Gardens State Park and Wilderness Area, with formal gardens, the Azalea Overlook, an arboretum, and waterfalls near the Toledo Bend Reservoir on the Sabine River in the western part of the State, the St