Capitals of Louisiana

Every day has its surprises

New Orleans or Baton Rouge?  It sounds like a trick question.

People sometimes ask us which we like better, New Orleans or Baton Rouge?  We don't have to spend a lot of time thinking it over before we answer.  Granted, we live in New Orleans because we love this city and we don't live in Baton Rouge because, well, we don't love it there.

Answering this question isn't like choosing a favorite Harp Twin.  Baton Rouge and New Orleans are as different from each other as Camille and Kennerly are interchangable.



We meet a lot of people from Baton Rouge.  When people in Baton Rouge want to celebrate an anniversary, or spoil themselves, or just have a good time, they come to New Orleans.  I am not aware of any traffic in the other direction for these reasons.  Some New Orleanians go to Baton Rouge because they work there.  Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana so people sometimes go there for government business.  That's why I went the last time.  It wasn't a lot of fun.

Baton Rouge flag

When people tell me that they are going to go to Baton Rouge after their time in New Orleans, I always have the same question: "What  do you think you're going to do there?"  It's always the same answer: "We're visiting friends who live there."  That's a good reason to go to Baton Rouge.

I could say a lot of negative things about Baton Rouge, but I'm not going to.  That's not our usual tone here.  In fact, what die-hard, true blue Baton Rougians (is that a word?) may take as being negative, I think of it as more being just what it is, neither here nor there.  I have no strong feelings for Baton Rouge, pro or con.  What do I think about Baton Rouge?  Most of the time I don't think about it at all.

A building in Donaldsonville that is no longer standing

Baton Rouge hasn't always been the capital of Louisiana. 

There has always been a tension between the northern part of Louisiana which is more American, and, more properly what people think of as "the South," and the southern part of Louisiana, which is Acadiana, culturally more influenced by the French and Spanish who ruled here prior to the Louisiana Purchase (1803).

New Orleans was the capital city of Louisiana from colonial times until 1829.   In that year, the Anglo-Louisianians complained that New Orleans was too noisy and was too much a den of vice to conduct proper state business.  The Creoles, who were content to keep the seat of government in francophone New Orleans, did their best to keep the capital close to their home base.  A compromise was reached.

From 1829 to 1831, wee Donaldsonville in Ascension Parish, was the state capital.  Things were a little too sleepy in Donaldsonville,  even for the teetollers and the spoilsports, so the capital reverted back to New Orleans.

In 1846, Baton Rouge was designated the capital of Louisiana.  Once again, the "sinful" distractions of the Crescent City were thought to be detrimental to good government.  A central location was chosen no less than 60 miles upriver of New Orleans.  Since Baton Rouge is located on the first bluff from the Mississippi's mouth, it was chosen.  

Baton Rouge has stayed the capital ever since, with brief interruptions during the Civil War.  In 1862, when Baton Rouge fell to Union troops, the capital was moved to scenic Opelousas, Louisiana for nine months.  The governor's mansion is still standing on the corner of Liberty and Grolee Streets, just west of the beautiful downtown business district.  Opelousas is still a kind of capital.  The city bills itself as The Zydeco Capital of the World.

Opelousas fell to Union troops in 1863 and the state government up and moved again, this time to the most remote corner of the state, to majestically named Shreveport.  Shreveport may be a great place to live (the city's motto) but it apparently isn't that great a place from which to govern because the capital reverted to Baton Rouge in 1865.  The rest, as of this writing, is history.

All this historical talk has got me yearning for a little more harp music.

All this harp music is making me thirsty.  I'm going to walk down our street to Buffa's to catch Lucas Davenport, whose show starts in about twenty minutes in the back room.  I've had enough harp music for one day.  Mr. Davenport tickles the ivories.  That means he plays the piano.  He really knows his way over those eighty-eight.  It should be a nice night.  Why wouldn't it be?  This is New Orleans.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
Where the rest comes easy.