December 1, 1879
Albert Baldwyn Wood was born in New Orleans today in 1879. After graduating from Tulane in 1899,Wood was hired by the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans to try to improve the flood-prone city’s drainage, Wood invented “flapgates” and other hydraulic devices, most notably his efficient low-maintenance, high-volume pumps including the Wood Screw Pump in 1913 and the Wood Trash Pump in 1915. He spearheaded swampland reclamation and development of much of the land now occupied by much of the city.Some of Wood’s pumps have been in almost continuous use in New Orleans for over eighty years without need of repairs, and new ones continue to be built from his designs.
December 1, 1904
When the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at Saint Louis closed today in 1904, Louisiana officials found that they had a large number of pertinent artifacts on their hands that had been gathered to be displayed at Louisiana’s exhibition at this fair. It was decided that this collection should be stored, expanded, and displayed, so the Louisiana State Museum was established in 1906. The Presbytere and the Cabildo buildings, located on either side of the St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square, two of the museum’s first homes, and it would eventually grow to thirteen properties around the state and host an array of programs such as lecture series, tours, and musical performances.
December 2, 1947
“Jingle, jangle, jingle…Here comes Mr. Bingle!” The lovable snowman with the ice cream cone hat and wings of holly made his debut this week in 1947 at the Maison Blanche Department Store in New Orleans. Mr. Bingle was the star of his own show with Rose Mae and Penguin Pete, performed at the Canal Street Maison Blanche (seen here in 1949) each day in the weeks before Christmas. After the Baton Rouge department store Goudchaux’s purchased Maison Blanche, Mr. Bingle would make his Capital City debut during the 1982 Christmas season. While Bingle-mania would never be as intense in Baton Rouge as it had been in New Orleans, he remains an everlasting symbol of the Christmas season.
December 2, 1814
“In 1814, I took a little trip, along with Andy Jackson down the Mighty Mississip’…” An awkward rhyme to be sure, but historically accurate. General Andrew Jackson arrived in New Orleans today in 1814 to prepare the city’s defenses against the expected British invasion. His first task would be to replace three hundred of his sick and wounded men he had left in Baton Rouge. Before he would meet the British at Chalmette in January, he would add militia from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi, as well as free blacks and other volunteers from Louisiana; and he would make arrangements to add Jean Lafitte’s privateers to his army.
December 3, 1927
The Natchitoches Christmas Parade on this first Saturday of December in 1927 kicked off one of Louisiana’s brightest holiday traditions. The Natchitoches Christmas Festival would grow over the years to include an early afternoon parade, an arts and crafts show, food booths along the riverfront selling famous Natchitoches meat pie, live entertainment, and an evening fireworks and laser show. But the festival’s highlights are more than 300,000 lights on more than 300,000 lights on more than a hundred displays along the Cane River that are switched on at dusk. In 2013, Yahoo.com ranked Natchitoches as the third “Best Holiday Light Show” behind the Rockefeller Center and Disney World.
December 3, 1933
Throughout Prohibition, Pat O’Brien had been running a speakeasy in the 600 block of St. Peter street in New Orleans’ French Quarter. With the repeal, he officially opened the bar today in 1933. Along with his friend Charlie Cantrell, he purchased the current building at 718 St Peter that had been built in 1791 as a private home and later became the first Spanish Theatre in the United States. The new club was larger and could accommodate two baby grand pianos, thus enabling the birth of dueling pianos and one of the most iconic nightclubs in the United States. According to Pat O’s website, “In the 1940’s…domestic liquor was scarce. However, Rum coming up the Mississippi river from the Caribbean islands was plentiful. In order to buy a case of Bourbon, for example, there was strong incentive to purchase large quantities of rum. With General manager George Oechsner Jr at the helm, the folks in the bar experimented with recipes, and eventually everyone agreed that passion fruit was a hit! A glass shaped like a hurricane lamp was the perfect vessel….” Thus the Hurricane was born.
December 4, 1999
Nobody seems to have an authoritative take on the specific date in December 1999, when artist Kenny Hill abandoned the hundred or so works of art he’d created at what is now the Chauvin Sculpture Garden in Chauvin in Terrebonne Parish. (For that matter, there’s no record of when he was born.) He was raised in Springfield, Louisiana, where he worked as a bricklayer, and he married at the age of twenty. In 1988. he found a large bayou-side property where he initially camped and eventually negotiated with the landowner to build himself a small house. In 1990, he began making sculptures throughout the property. Although most of them contained imagery inspired by his religious beliefs, he also made self-portraits, eagles, cowboys, and maidens out of concrete, bricks, and scavenged objects. After a dispute with the landowner, Hill abandoned his work and disappeared in 2000. His whereabouts remain unknown.
December 4, 1919
The historic French Opera House in New Orleans burned down tonight in 1919. The first opera performed in America had been Ernest Grétry’s Sylvain in 1796, and for the next hundred years, New Orleans would be America’s “first city of opera.” The French Opera House, or Théâtre de l’Opéra had been a New Orleans landmark since its opening in 1859. It was designed by James Gallier, Jr., and stood in the French Quarter at the uptown lake corner of Bourbon and Toulouse Streets, with the main entrance on Bourbon. Not only opera was held there, but also Carnival balls, debuts, benefits, receptions, and concerts.
December 5, 1721
When German settlers arrived in the Louisiana colony in 1721, they brought with them the German custom of celebrating St. Nicholas Day on December 5th, rather than the traditional Christmas date of the 25th. Children of German families along the German Coast in St. Charles Parish and elsewhere put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel outside the front door on the night of December 5th. St. Nicholas filled the boots of
the good, polite and helpful children with gifts and sweets overnight. Children who weren’t good got a stick. Observing St. Nicholas Day waned during World War I, as Louisianans of German descent opted to observe the traditional Christmas holiday.
December 5, 1932
Happy birthday, Little Richard! Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon, Georgia, today in 1932. While he only spent a few years of his storied career in Louisiana, what years they were! He recorded his seminal hits, including Tutti Frutti, Long Tall Sally, Lucille, Good Golly Miss Molly, and others at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Recording Studio in New Orleans with producer Bumps Blackwell. These sessions, backed by Fats Domino’s band, merged gospel with R&B to create the foundational sound of rock ‘n’ roll. After a foray in to gospel music, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded Little Richard to tour Europe after telling him his records were selling well there. Brian Epstein, asked Arden if his new band, The Beatles, could open for Richard on some tour dates. One of these was a legendary performance at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany. During this time, Richard advised the group on how to perform his songs and taught Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations. Little Richard was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2009, and died in 2020 at the age of 87.
December 6, 1865
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified today in 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The amendment passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865. On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation had freed slaves in “areas in open rebellion” to the Union, but had specifically exempted the western part of the Commonwealth of Virginia which would soon become the State of West Virginia, and Southern Louisiana, which was considered to be “pacified” in the aftermath of the capture of New Orleans and Baton Rouge in 1862. Many newly-freed slaves in South Louisiana would not be certain of their status until the 13th Amendment was ratified almost three years later.
December 6, 1942
This week in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the dissolution of the Works Progress Administration. It had been the largest and most ambitious American New Deal agency, and during some years in the 1930’s its budget had employed 8.5 million people and consumed 6-7 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. In Louisiana, the WPA would provide labor for some of the state’s most iconic buildings including the Mississippi River bridges in Baton Rouge and Jefferson Parish, most of the LSU campus including Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge; City Park, the Audubon Zoo, the French Market and Charity Hospital in New Orleans; and the Barksdale air base in Shreveport-Bossier.
December 7, 1769
Today in 1769, Spanish Governor Alejandro O’Reilly issued a decree which banned the trade of Native American slaves. Although there was no movement toward abolition of the African slave trade, Spanish rule introduced a new law called coartación, which allowed slaves to buy their freedom and that of other slaves. French colonists had brought slavery to Louisiana in 1706, and over the years, thousands of indigenous people were killed, with surviving women and children taken as slaves. The enslavement of natives, including the Atakapa, Bayogoula, Natchez, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Taensa, and Alabamon peoples, would continue throughout the history of French rule.
December 7, 1941
This week in 1941, newsman Howard K. Smith, born in Ferriday in 1914 and a graduate of Tulane University, was released from custody in Berlin for failing to having some of his reporting from the German capital approved by Gestapo censors, and put on the train out of the country–to Switzerland. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the United Press sent Smith to Nazi Germany to report on the conflict. In 1941 he was recruited by Edward Murrow to work for CBS Berlin Bureau. Smith would write of his experiences in his 1942 book, Last Train from Berlin, and go on to become one of the most respected journalists of the 20th century.
December 8, 1794
Following a devastating fire in March 1788 that destroyed 856 of the 1,100 structures in French Quarter (Vieux Carre), the area was just starting to get back to its feet in December when an additional 212 buildings were destroyed in a later citywide fire tonight in 1794. Among the buildings spared was the new St. Louis Cathedral, which was dedicated just two weeks later, on December 23rd. As Louisiana was a Spanish colony at the time, rebuilding after both fires was conducted in the Spanish style, with structures with courtyards, thick brick walls, arcades, and wrought iron balconies. Consequently, mst French architecture was eliminated from the French Quarter.
December 8, 1972
Tony Chachere’s Creole Foods of Opelousas, Inc. was incorporated this week in 1972. Tony Chachere was born in Opelousas in 1905. During the Great Depression, he started his a drug wholesale business, the Louisiana Drug Company (LADCO) with $100. Working from this garage, he created his own elixirs, including Mamou Cough Syrup and Bon Soir Bug insect repellent. He retired for the first time at fifty, and started experimenting with food seasonings. Ever the entrepreneur, Tony hired four employees and started manufacturing his seasoning blend, which he named Creole Seasoning. He also developed an instant base called Roux and Gravy Mix, which was an instant hit with fellow cooks.
December 9, 1928
One of Louisiana’s most lurid murder trials took a dramatic turn today in 1928. For years rumors of an affair between Dr. Tommy Dreher and Ada Bonner LeBoeuf, wife of James J. LeBeouf, who was murdered on Lake Palourde in 1927. Ada and Tommy would be tried and convicted of the murder, condemned to death, and have the date of their executions set for January 9, 1929. Ada would be the first white woman convicted and hanged in Louisiana. Today in New Orleans, a blue steel revolver was
brought forth, rumored to be the weapon that James Beadle, Dreher’s handyman, had used to commit the crime for his employer, but it would too late to save Ada and Tommy.
December 9, 2008
“Sic Gloria Transit,”as the Emperor Hadrian might have said when a seven-foot marble statue of him was sold at auction by Christie’s in New York today in 2008. The statue, carved in 127 AD had stood in the Vlla Montalto-Negroni-Massimi in Rome until John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley carted it off to Cobham Hall in Kent in the early 1800’s. IBERIABANK purchased the statue for $3000 in 1961 and placed in front of the bank facing the Baptist Church across the street. According to New Iberia historian Paul Schwing, one Sunday morning, “someone put a can of beer in his hand, put a bra on him and he had some panties handing in the crook of his arm.” Such pranks eventually compelled the bank to build a glass enclosure (pictured) where it remained until the sale to an undisclosed buyer in 2008 for $902,000.
December 10, 1957
Lafayette’s iconic Tex-Mex Restaurant La Fonda opened today in 1957. Founder Leebob Cox, was hoping to be able to make a living selling Tex-Mex food and charcoal-broiled steaks when he opened his restaurant in a non-descript building on Johnston Street. At first, he struggled and wasn’t sure he was going to make it, but the people of Lafayette found it quickly enough. La Fonda moved several blocks down Johnston Street. In the 1960s, Cox opened a fast-food restaurant called Yankee Doodle, selling some of La Fonda’s more popular menu items. Yankee Doodle didn’t last, and Cox was able to focus on La Fonda.
December 10, 1822
St. Tammany Parish was esblished this week in 1822. So who was St. Tammany? His name wasn’t Tammany until it was edited after his death, and he wasn’t a saint. Chief Tamanend (depicted here in a statue in Philadelphia) was a revered Lenni-Lenape (Delaware) leader in the 1600’s. He was known as “the Affable One” who forged a legendary peace treaty with William Penn in 1682, establishing peaceful coexistence in Pennsylvania. He became a symbol of American peace and a popular “Patron Saint,” inspiring societies like Tammany Hall, though much later history was mythologized by non-Native writers.
December 11, 1889
At the New Orleans funeral of Jefferson Davis this week in 1889, one of the honor guards was an Avoyelles Parish planter named A. M. Haas. Haas had been born in Alsace in 1833 and immigrated to Louisiana around 1845. In the Civil War, he would become a colonel in the Confederate Army, and after the war, he would own the plantation on which the town of Bunkie is located. When he was negotiating with the Texas and Pacific Railroad for the right of way through his property, he agreed to cede the rights, if the railroad would name the railroad stop for his daughter Mary Maccie, whose nickname was “Bunkie.”
December 11, 1902
Today in 1902, the Reily Foods Company in New Orleans started roasting, grinding and distributing coffee in New Orleans.William B. Reily had began his career in the grocery and packaged goods business in the late 1870s as a country store clerk in Bastrop. He opened his own store in Bastrop and two years later, he moved to Monroe, LA where he started the Southern Grocery Company, Inc. After fourteen years of building and running his successful wholesale business, Reily moved to New Orleans to start what would become the Reily Foods Company in 1902.In 1932, Reily and his sons created a blend of tea made specifically to be used for iced tea. Luzianne Iced Tea has since become the cornerstone product of the company and the second best selling iced tea in the United States.
December 12, 1943
Louisiana’s General Claire Chennault was Time Magazine’s cover boy this week in 1943. Claire Lee Chennault was born in Texas and grew up in the Louisiana towns of Gilbert and Waterproof. He attended LSU, entered the ROTC program and got interested in aviation. By early 1941, Chennault was commanding the 1st American Volunteer Group, nicknamed Flying Tigers. Chennault was able to recruit some three hundred American pilots and ground crew, posing as tourists, who were adventurers or mercenaries, not necessarily idealists out to save China. But under Chennault they developed into a crack fighting unit, always going against superior Japanese forces. They became the symbol of America’s military might in Asia.
December 12, 1894
The first issue of the Winnfield Comrade was published this week in 1894. The Comrade was one of approximately fifty Populist newspapers in the South and claimed to be the first in Louisiana. Its founder was Hardy L. Brian, Louisiana’s most prominent People’s Party leader. Brian sold his interest in the paper in 1893, became editor of the Louisiana Populist in Natchitoches Parish, and ran unsuccessfully for office as a Populist candidate. The Comrade hung on until 1914.
December 13, 1929
The Melancholy Dame, starring Evelyn Preer and Vidalia-born actor Spencer Williams (photo), premiered this week in 1929. It is considered to be the first black talkie. Prior to becoming an actor, Williams studied at the University of Minnesota and served in the U.S. Army during and after World War I, rising to the rank of sergeant major, serving first as General Pershing’s bugler in Mexico and as an intelligence officer in France. Williams directed films with mixed success until he was cast as Andrew J. Brown in the television version of Amos ‘n’ Andy from 1951 to 1953. Amos ‘n’ Andy had been controversial from the start . As the radio version had been voiced by white actors, the NAACP filed suit to block the premiere of the television broadcast. Despite his contributions as a pioneer in black American film of the 1930s and the 1940s, Williams found it hard to find work until his death in 1969.
December 13, 1935
The Bonnet Carré Spillway in St. Charles Parish was dedicated this week in 1931. In response to the catastrophic flooding on the Mississippi River 1927, work was begun on the spillway, which would release high river waters into Lake Pontchartrain when New Orleans was threatened. 11,000 65-75-foot timbers were erected and 600,000 square feet of steel sheet pilings and been driven in the project. Despite predictions
at the opening of the spillway that it would never be used because flood control measures upriver and on the Atchafalaya River would control floods in the New Orleans area, the spillway has been put into operation on eleven occasions since 1931.
December 14, 1814
The opening shots of the British campaign to capture New Orleans that would culminate near Chalmette a month later were fired today at what has come to be known as the Battle of Lake Borgne. Americans had understood that the British General Edward Pakenham would be moving his 8000 troops from Mobile to New Orleans via Lake Borgne and dispatched Thomas ap Catesby Jones. (“ap” is a Welsh construction, indicating “son of”.) The British commander Alexander Cochrane, unable to move his ocean-going vessels through the shallow waters around New Orleans, dispatched 42 armed rowboats under Nicholas Lockyear to neutralize the American fleet of five small vessels. During the course of the battle, 94 British sailors and 41 Americans were killed or wounded, but the battle was considered a British victory as the way was opened for the British Army to disembark somewhere they could approach New Orleans by land.
December 14, 1894
In 1867, miners discovered sulfur in the caprock of a salt dome in Calcasieu Parish, but it was beneath quicksand, which prevented mining. In 1894 the German-born American chemist, Herman Frasch devised his Frasch method of sulfur removal using pipes to bypass the quicksand. The process proved successful in December 1894, when the first molten sulfur was brought to the surface. However, the high cost of fuel needed to heat the water made the process uneconomic until the 1901 discovery of the Spindletop oil field in Texas provided cheap fuel oil to the region. The Frasch process began economic production at Sulphur Mines, Louisiana in 1903.
December 15, 1974
According to Louisiana’s Secretary of State, a business license was granted to “Takee Outee of Bourbon, Inc.” this week in 1974. Even though some customers might have been seeing double at the time, it did seem that they were everywhere in the Quarter in the 70’s and 80’s. At one time or another, there were nine or more locations–at least three on Bourbon Street alone. Takee Outee was created by Frank Hara and Hideko Sato and was famous for fried fast foods that could be eaten while wandering from bar to bar. Depending on how much a person had been drinking, it might have been the finest food ever put on a stick.
December 15, 1792
Jean Noël Destrehan de Tours purchased a plant his father-in-law’s plantation this week in 1792. Destrehan had been born in New Orleans in 1754, was educated in France and returned to Louisiana in 1771. With his brother, Jean-Baptiste Honoré Destréhan de Beaupré, he purchased a plantation in St. Charles Parish that became solely his upon death of brother. He married the daughter of a St. Charles Parish neighbor and purchased the home now known as Destréhan Manor from the estate of his father-in-law in December 1792. Later, he would serve as a member, Legislative Council of the Territory of Orleans and served as its president, 1806, again in 1811.