March 1, 1869
The largest lumber mill in the world opened in McNary—now the village of Arizona in Claiborne Parish today in 1869. In the mills’ heyday, McNary had a population of nearly 3,000 residents (like these folks) with a church, school, post office, fully-staffed hospital, swimming pool, depot and a large theater. By 1923, the forests around McNary had become denuded of pines, and the owners of the village began looking about for a new site. They found it in Cooley, Arizona, a village about 150 miles from Flagstaff. It wasn’t just the sawmill that moved to Arizona; the whole town of McNary went with it. In January 1924, they loaded up trains with employees and all their possessions, plus the logging and sawmill machinery, and moved the entire operation to Arizona. Cooley, Arizona, became McNary, Arizona; and McNary, Louisiana became Arizona, Louisiana. The sawmill in Arizona eventually became Southwest Forest Industries and closed in 1979.
March 1, 1721
Today in 1711, the French ship Les Deux Freres, reached the Louisiana colony from France with passengers which included the colony’s first forty German immigrants. Some of them would eventually settle in communities in the Côte des Allemands, or German Coast, in St. Charles Parish. With the incentives offered to them by John Law and the Mississippi Company, twelve hundred German settlers had boarded five ships in France during 1710-1711. In the course of their travels to the colony, one thousand of them would fall victim to mistreatment, tropical diseases, pirates and second thoughts, while only two hundred would eventually settle in the Côte des Allemands.
March 2, 1909
Baseball Hall of Famer Mel Ott was born in Gretna today in 1909. The second cousin of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Baton Rouge, Stanley Joseph Ott, Mel overcame his average height and was taking home money for playing baseball as early as 14. Despite his power, Ott’s hometown minor league team, the New Orleans Pelicans, refused to sign him, so he went to work at a lumber company in Patterson, near Morgan City, where he became a sensation on the company baseball team. Company owner Henry Williams was particularly impressed with Ott and purchased a train ticket for him to travel to New York for a try-out with the Giants. Manager John McGraw predicted that he would be “one of the greatest lefthand hitters the National League has ever seen.” And he was. Ott led the National League in home runs a then-record six times. He was an All-Star for 11 consecutive seasons[a], and was the first National League player to surpass 500 career home runs.
March 2, 1855
The town of Kenner was incorporated in 1855 and named for Stephen Minor Kenner who subdivided his family’s three plantations in Jefferson Parish and sold them as residential lots in 1853. Kenner’s only known political involvement was being elected in 1835 to the Jefferson Parish Police Jury. In 1853, his brother and neighbor, William Butler Kenner of Oakland Plantation, died leaving a debt-ridden estate. Minor attempted to save the family holdings by subdividing it and his own two plantations, Belle Grove and Pasture. In the beginning, Kenner called the settlement “Kennerville”, but by the date of incorporation, the named had been abbreviated to Kenner.
March 3, 1942
Three months after Pearl Harbor, wartime realities were beginning to set in for civilians across the nation. In Louisiana, interruptions in the rubber supply from Southeast Asia had caused the price of pencils with rubber erasers to double in the past year. The price of paper had also surged 15-25 percent. J. M. Boyet, superintendent of materials for the state’s Department of Education, cautioned school districts across the state that their requests for the coming school year would be reduced and that the quality of supplies would also decrease.
March 3, 1794
Le Moniteur de la Louisiana, Louisiana’s first newspaper, began publishing today in 1794. The paper, whose motto was “Bombalio. Clangor. Stridor. Tarantantara. Murmur” remained in business until 1815. Over the centuries, Louisiana has been the home of newspapers with names as colorful as the Avoyelles Pelican, Louisiana Cotton Boll (Lafayette), the Lumberjack (Alexandria, pictured), the Homer Illiad, the American Patriot (Columbia); L’Ami des Lois (New Orleans); the Country Visitor (New Orleans); Gris-Gris (Baton Rouge); La Lanterne Magique (New Orleans); Le Polyglotte (New Orleans);St. Tammany Farmer; the Donaldsonville Chief; The Caucasian; The People’s Vindicator; The Louisiana Capitolian (Baton Rouge); The True American; and The Comrade.
March 4, 1869
U.S. Grant was inaugurated as 18th President in Washington today. Meanwhile in Louisiana, Grant Parish, named for the general and president, was created and received its charter on the same day. In March, 1877, E. J. Barrett, of Rapides, introduced a bill to extend the lines of this parish so as to include Pineville. Robert Hunter, alias “Ten Mile Bob, ” another representative of Rapides, aided this proposition, and the “Rump House’ ‘ passed the bill by a vote of 59 against 2. Col. E. G. Randolph opposed the measure, and the attempt never succeeded. The original bill was introduced by W. S. Calhoun, then a representative, S. C. Cuney (colored) and Henry Lott (colored), representatives, and Senator George Y. Kelso assisted Mr. Calhoun in pushing forward the bill in the House and Senate.
March 4, 1940
Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture Harry Wilson got into a bragging match today in 1940. A recent statement by Wilson that Louisiana produced a wider variety of crops than any other state brought a swift response from J. E. McDonald, his Texas counterpart, citing among other things that tobacco was the only crop grown in Louisiana that was not grown in Texas. In response to the response, Wilson unleashed a barrage of jabs including, “Almost every fur coat you see in Texas is made from the pelts of Louisiana muskrats,” and in response to McDonald’s comments about the Texas spinach crop, McDonald replied, “we discourage our farmers from producing that obnoxious weed.”
March 5, 1968
One hour and twenty minutes after the new Earl K. Long Hospital opened its doors on Airline Highway today in 1968, seven-pound Vera Louis was the first baby to be born there. Labor disputes, equipment delays and staffing problems had delayed the hospital’s opening by twenty-one months. While all hospital services would not be available for several months, Earl K. was able to open 31 of its 250 beds on its first day with the help of more than one hundred volunteers who had been recruited by the American Red Cross . The hospital would close in 2010 and be demolished on June 12th, 2015.
March 5, 1766
France had ceded Louisiana to Spain in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, but it would be three years before the Spanish sent a governor to oversee the colony. Don Antonio de Ulloa arrived in New Orleans today in 1766 to take up his responsibilities from the acting French Governor Philippe Aubry, but when the French troops refused to recognize his authority, Ulloa didn’t try to publicly acknowledge the formal transfer of power. Instead, he decided to execute his orders through Aubry, the acting French governor, preserving the appearance of continued French rule. French officer revolted in 1768, forcing Ulloa to flee to Havana without ever taking charge of the colony.
March 6, 1899
There were three separate incidents that resulted in the deaths of pedestrians being run over by New Orleans streetcars this week in 1899. Electric powered streetcars made their first appearance in New Orleans on the Carrollton line on February 1, 1893. Prior to this time three different companies ran at least thirty different horse-drawn lines through the city, and one-by-one, they began to convert to electric power. Pedestrians were slow to catch on to the fact that electrified cars were quieter and less likely to be noticed than horse-drawn cars, and over the years, hundreds would pay for their lack of awareness with ther lives.
March 6, 1836
While our neighbors in Texas are remembering the Alamo which fell today in 1836, Louisianans can recall that one of the martyrs of the day was Jim Bowie, who’d been born in Tennessee in 1795 and moved to Louisiana in 1802, living in Concordia and Catahoula parishes. Bowie farmed and logged in the Bayou Boeuf area in Rapides Parish, and later lived in Opelousas and Thibodaux, where he introduced state’s first steam mill for grinding sugar cane. According to legend, while recovering from a dueling challenge in 1827, he had the weapon known as the Bowie Knife designed for future challenges. He 1828, he moved with his family to Texas.
March 7, 1899
The Southern Banana Exchange was established this week in 1899.First introduced at the 1876 World’s Fair, in Philadelphia, bananas quickly became a staple in the national diet. Thanks to the city’s location and the advent of refrigerated shipping, New Orleans became one the largest importers of bananas in the nation. Bananas were unloaded at the Thalia Street wharf and loaded onto railroad cars to be shipped around the country. The importation of the fruit cemented the city’s relationship with Latin America, where United Fruit established a stronghold in the region’s politics, economy and real estate. In New Orleans, bananas were unloaded at the Thalia Street wharf; a portion was sold at local produce markets, and the rest were loaded onto railroad cars and shipped around the country. The importation of the fruit cemented the city’s sometimes smarmy relationship with Latin America, that would later become immortalized in the term, “banana republic.”
March 7, 1816
Today in 1816, the state legislature addressed immigration issues by enacting legislation to require that “an individual coming into the state from a foreign country, or from any one state of the United States and desirous of acquiring residence therein, shall give notice in writing to the judge of the parish where he proposes to reside, of his intention to acquire residence, and in which notice shall also be stated, his age, the country or state from whence he came, the trade, profession or pursuit which he designs to follow.” Seven thousand Europeans had emigrated to Louisiana in the 1700’s, and the number would increase twenty-fold in the 1800’s.
March 8, 1813
“Union, Justice, Confidence,” is Louisiana’s motto, but where did it come from? Thanks to the work of researcher Jason Theriot, we now know that these three words were central to the writings of Territorial Governor W. C. C. Claiborne, prior to Louisiana’s statehood in 1812. “Union” reflected his desire to join the American Union; “Justice” suggests his commitment to law and order; and “Confidence” seemed more of a request than a statement, asking the people of Louisiana to have confidence in the ability of its leaders. The photo shows a document signed by Claiborne today in 1813,declaring that “Union, Justice, Confidence” shall be Louisiana’s Official State Motto.
March 8, 1876
After three years of debate and controversy, members of the U.S. Senate refused to allow former Louisiana Governor P. B. S. Pinchback to take his seat today in 1876. In 1868, Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback had become the first African American to hold the office of governor in any American state and served a thirty-five day term from December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873. In 1873, the Louisiana legislature selected him to serve as one of Louisiana’s senators in Washington. After three years of postponing and debating his acceptance, the Senate finally voted not to
allow him to take his seat.
March 9, 2026
So what’s the fastest growing community in Louisiana? It’s not close. In 2010, 964 men, women, and children called Maurice home. By 2020, that number had grown to 2118, an increase of 119.7 percent. Rounding out the top three were Youngsville (96.5 percent), Addis (87.3 percent) and Broussard (63.7 percent). Among communities of 10,000 or more, the top five included Broussard, Youngsville, Central (62.7 percent), Covington (31.9 percent), and Zachary (29.1 percent). Lake Charles (17.9 percent) and New Orleans (11.9) were the only cities in the state of 50,000 or more to experience more than a minimal population increase as displaced citizens from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were finally being able to return to their homes more than five years after the storms.
March 9, 1971
The coming of the interstate in the mid-twentieth century may have doomed Shreveport’ s West End neighborhood, but Herbert and Marian Bass at the neighborhood’s iconic “Herby K’s” kept on turning out gigantic Shrimp Busters po-boys. Herby K’s began life on Pierre Avenue as the Flying Crow, named for a train engine, selling package liquor,
tobacco, and sandwiches. In 1936, Herbert J. Busi, Jr. turned the family owned business into a restaurant bearing the nickname he picked up while attending LSU and Herby-K’s was born. The shrimp buster was born in 1945, and today in 1971, Herby-K’ s received its business license from the State of Louisiana.
March 10, 1939
New Orleans Superintendent of Police George Peyer announced today that automobile owners had better get one of the new “brake tags”–or risk a $1 ticket. (Today, such a fine could go as high as $500.) The legislature had passed legislation in 1938 requiring the inspections in order to assure that cars met basic safety standards. In the 1960s, mission creep had expanded the role of inspection stickers to include protecting the environment.Why were they called “brake tags” in New Orleans and not in the rest of the state? Not even AI can provide a satisfactory answer to that question, but if you know, we’d love to hear the explanation!
March 10, 1980
Louisiana’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction was inaugurated today in 1980. David Conner Treen was born in Baton Rouge in 1928 and grew up in Metairie, where In 1945, he graduated from Alcee Fortier High School in New Orleans. After college and law school at Tulane, Treen served in the U.S. Air Force from 1951 to 1952. After his discharge, Treen joined the law firm of Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1964, 1966 and 1968, before finally being elected in 1972, as the first Republican elected to Congress from Louisiana in a century. Earlier in 1972, he ran unsuccessfully for governor against Democrat Edwin Edwards.
March 11, 1811
Warren Parish was established this week in 1811. Named for Massachusetts Revolutionary War officer Joseph Warren (pictured) who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was located in parts of present-day Madison and East Carroll Parishes. The parish seat was established at New Jerusalem. On March 10, 1814, the legislature dissolved Warren Parish, with the northern part of present-day Madison Parish going to Ouachita Parish and the southern part going back to Concordia. The loss of the parish also spelled doom for New Jerusalem, as it too was abandoned shortly thereafter.
March 11, 1832
Marie des Neiges Juchereau de St. Denis died today in 1832. He had been born a slave in 1770, the son of a black slave and a white planter. He was purchased by his father as a child in 1770 and manumitted at the age of 32 in 1802. In 1795, he had received a royal grant of 1160 acres of land in Natchitoches Parish that is now Melrose Plantation. An astute businessman like his father, he rapidly expanded his holdings, while successfully waging an on-going legal battle to retain possession of his land against the counterclaim of a prominent white colonist.
March 12, 1837
An announcement in The Picayune dated today in 1837, exclaimed the completion of the Carrollton Race Course, the city’s first horse track. The Louisiana Jockey Club was a sporting association founded in 1837 with the completion of the course. Also in 1837, a second jockey club, the Louisiana Jockey Club opened at the Jackson Race Course, which was on the site of the current Fairgrounds Race Course on Gentilly Blvd. With the opening of the Fairgrounds in 1873, the Louisiana Jockey Club opened its new club house on Leda Court near the Fairgrounds. Today, the Jockey Club is known as the Luling Mansion, and the Fairgrounds is the only remaining thoroughbred race course among the old line tracks in the nation.
March 12, 1894
Today in 1894, President Grover Cleveland appointed Edward Douglass White of Thibodaux to the Supreme Court of the United States. White was born in 1845, the son of Edward Douglass White, Sr., a former governor of Louisiana. He began his academic career at Georgetown University before the Civil War and completed his law degree at Tulane after the war. In 1910, President William Howard Taft (who would later become a Chief Justice himself) elevated Douglass to the position of Chief Justice of the United States upon the death of Melville Fuller. At the time, his was a controversial appointment as White was a Democrat while Taft was a Republican.
March 13, 2026
Happy National Jewel Day! (Sorry, guys. It’s a real thing.) For a state that barely has any native rocks, much less jewels, Louisiana is the only place in the world where you can find the surprisingly beautiful Louisiana Opal. The Louisiana Opal, also known as the Louisiana Sand Opal, was briefly mined in the Catahoula Formation, located near Leesville. It is a form of sandstone in which grains of sand are held together by clear opal. When it’s exposed to sunlight, this mixture of materials gives off a distinctive play of colors that makes Louisiana Opal look quite intriguing. Like any self-respecting gem, Louisiana Opal is rare. It was mined for a short period of time in the last century, but now your best shot at finding one is along the shoreline and tributaries of Toledo Bend.
March 13, 1971
The town of Henderson was incorporated this week in 1971. While few Louisiana motorists would be surprised to learn that the town derives the vast majority of its operating revenue from speeding tickets issued on the interstate, even fewer would be surprised to learn that for the first seventeen years of the town’s existence, it’s mayor was Pat Huval, founder, owner and operator of Pat’s Fisherman’s Wharf. Huval, started
selling hamburgers and sacks of crawfish from a stand he rented on the Atchafalaya Basin in 1948. By 1952, Huval purchased the stand and the adjacent dance hall, which he would mold into a nationally renowned Cajun restaurant.
March 14, 1941
Aunt Sally didn’t invent the praline, but “Aunt Sally’s Original Creole Pralines” was trademarked today in 1941. In the 17th century, the cook of the Duke of Plessis-Praslin in France invented a method for coating whole almonds in caramelized sugar was later recorded it in a cookbook as a “prawlin”. Within one hundred years, the term and the recipe had crossed the Atlantic to France’s Louisiana colony, with pecans taking the place of almonds in the recipe. During and after the Civil War, older Black women would be seen on the streets in the New Orleans, selling home-made versions of the confection. In 1935, Diane and Pierre Bagur opened the first Aunt Sally’s Praline Shop in the historic French Market (pictured).
March 14, 1820
The town of Monroe was established by legislature today in 1820. The first residents of what is now Monroe were the Ouachita Indians who inhabited the area around 1350 BC. The site later attracted a transitory population of traders, trappers, and hunters, but few permanent inhabitants. In 1782, the Governor of New Orleans sent Don Juan Filhiol to establish a post along the Ouachita River. By 1790, this trading post, called Ft. Miro, had evolved into a community of forty-nine families. Ouachita Parish was established March 31, 1807, with Ft. Miro as the parish seat. In 1819, the town’s name was changed from Ft. Miro to Monroe.
March 15, 1870
Louisiana’s largest parish, Cameron, was established today in 1870, and named for Simon Cameron, who was at the time a United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Cameron’s career had taken some interesting twists and turns over the years. In 1860, Cameron had been a Republican candidate for President, When Abraham Lincoln won the nomination that summer, Cameron endorsed him immediately and went on to be named as Lincoln’s first Secretary of War. After Cameron advocated
the allowing African-Americans to serve in the Army, Lincoln dismissed him and appointed him as U.S. Ambassador to Russia. He fell out of favor with Republican leaders after Lincoln’s death and was again dismissed. He returned to Pennsylvania and served as one the state’s senators in Washington until his resignation in 1877.
March 15, 1822
Today in 1822, the legislature authorized Ascension, Assumption and Lafourche parishes establish a lottery to raise $8000 to improve Bayou Lafourche. Early settlers explored a descending fork of the Mississippi River that mapmakers had named “LaFourche Des Chitimachas,” later shortened to “LaFourche.” In 1811 the first steamboats began traveling along the Bayou Lafourche. Lotteries had been a common way of generating public funds in the early 19th century, but the 1822 lottery would be a bust, and the bayou would languish for almost a century. The discovery of oil in the 1920’s revived the region and set the economic trend of the Bayou Lafourche area until the present day.
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