All About Louisiana
Swathed in the romance of pirates, voodoo and Mardi Gras, Louisiana is undeniably special. Its history is barely on nodding terms with the view that America was the creation of the Pilgrim Fathers; its way of life is proudly set apart. This is the land of the rural, French-speaking Cajuns (descended from the Acadians, eighteenth-century French-Canadian refugees), who live in the prairies and swamps in the southwest of the state, and the Creoles of jazzy, sassy New Orleans . (The term Creole was originally used to define anyone born in the state to French or Spanish colonists - famed in the nineteenth century for their masked balls, family feuds and duels - as well as native-born, French-speaking slaves, but has since come to define anyone or anything native to Louisiana, and in particular its black population.)
Louisiana's spicy home-cooked food, regular festivals and lilting French-based dialect - and above all its music ( jazz, R&B, Cajun and its bluesy black counterpart, zydeco) - draw from all these cultures. Oddly enough, north Louisiana - Protestant Bible Belt country, where old plantation homes stand decaying in vast cottonfields - feels more ''Southern'' than the marshy bayous, shaded by ancient cypress trees and laced with wispy trails of Spanish moss, of the Catholic south of the state.
The French first settled Louisiana in 1682, braving swamps and plagues to harvest the abundant cypress, but the state was sparsely inhabited before its first permanent settlement, the trading post of Natchitoches, was established in 1714. In 1760, Louis XV secretly handed New Orleans, along with all French territory west of the Mississippi, to his Spanish cousin, Charles III, as a safeguard against the British. Louisiana remained Spanish until it was ceded to Napoleon in 1801, under the proviso that it should never change hands again. Just two years later, however, Napoleon, strapped for cash to fund his battles with the British in Europe, struck a bargain with president Thomas Jefferson known as the Louisiana Purchase . This sneaky agreement handed over to the US all French lands between Canada and Mexico, from the Mississippi to the Rockies, for a total cost of $15 million.
The subsequent ''Americanization'' of Louisiana was one of the most momentous periods in the state's history, with the port of New Orleans, in its key position near the mouth of the Mississippi River, growing to become one of the nation's wealthiest cities. Though the state seceded from the Union to join the Confederacy in 1861, there were important differences between Louisiana and the rest of the slave-driven South. The Black Code, drawn up by the French in 1685 to govern Saint-Domingue (today's Haiti) and established in Louisiana in 1724, had given slaves rights unparalleled elsewhere, including permission to marry, meet socially and take Sundays off. The black population of New Orleans in particular was renowned as exceptionally literate and cosmopolitan.
Louisiana is crossed east-west by two major interstates, I-20 in the north and I-10 in the south. New Orleans is the hub, traversed by I-10 and served by I-55 and I-59 from Mississippi. I-49 sweeps across southeast to northwest, connecting Cajun country with the north. The international airport is in New Orleans; regional airlines serve the rest of the state and surrounding areas. Amtrak trains link New Orleans with New York, Chicago and Memphis, and Los Angeles via Lafayette. Greyhound buses connect the major towns with the rest of the country, and are supplemented by smaller local lines. In addition to the Mississippi's bridges and causeways, ferries cross the river at New Orleans, St Francisville in Cajun country, and at various points along the River Road to Baton Rouge.
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Louisiana Hotels News
GMAC Commercial Mortgage Arranges $39 Million Financing for Three Louisiana Hotel Properties.
Business Editors HORSHAM, PaBUSINESS WIREMarch 19, 2001 GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corporation (GMACCM) has arranged $38,500,000 in permanent financing for three hotel properties in Louisiana. -- The Courtyard by Marriott New Orleans Convention Center with 202 guestrooms received an $18,000,000 loan
Publication: Business Wire
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Dimension Development Co., Natchitoches, Louisiana, a hotel management firm, selects Trend FX. Wichita, Kansas. (Supply Line).(Brief Article)
Dimension Development Co., Natchitoches, Louisiana, a hotel management firm, selects Trend FX, Wichita, Kansas, for its revenue management system (RMS).
Publication: Hotels
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Priceline.com Report Shows More Louisiana and Mississippi Hotels Coming Back On-Line after Hurricane Katrina; 12% In Louisiana, 21% in Mississippi Now Back in Business.
NORWALK, Conn. -- Internet travel and hotel reservation service priceline.com(R) (Nasdaq: PCLN) reported today that 12% of the Louisiana hotels affected by Hurricane Katrina and 21% of the affected Mississippi hotels have been able to re-open for business. These figures are based on hotel
Publication: Business Wire
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Mississippi, Louisiana Coast Hotels Anticipate New Year's Eve Sellout.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Sep. 28 -- New Orleans hotels are having to lower their rates for New Year's Eve because of lackluster reservations, but some properties on the Coast are counting down to a sellout holiday weekend. "So far, so good," said Linda Hornsby, director of the Gulf Coast
Publication: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
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Hilton Announces Opening of Two New Hotels in Louisiana.
Hilton New Orleans St. Charles Avenue and Hilton Shreveport Mark Louisiana's Return as a Top Travel Destination BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- As Louisiana continues its dramatic return to form as one of America's most-loved travel destinations, Hilton Hotels (NYSE:HLT) has affirmed its commitment to
Publication: Business Wire
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Hilton opens two new hotels in Louisiana
Hilton Hotels today announced the opening of two new hotels in Louisiana, one on St. Charles Ave. in the former Hotel Monaco building and the other in Shreveport. On May 1, Hilton opened a 250-room hotel in 333 St. Charles Ave., built in 1926 as the Masonic Temple and the second high-rise to be
Publication: New Orleans CityBusiness
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Louisiana State U. officials planning hotel near Alumni Center
Ty Manieri University Wire 06-09-1999 (The Reveille) (U-WIRE) BATON ROUGE, La. -- The Louisiana State University Alumni Association plans to open a hotel and University sports memorabilia museum behind the Lod Cook Alumni Center in time for the start of the 2000 football season. The Lod Cook
Publication: University Wire
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Hyatt Place(TM) Opens Its First Hotel in Louisiana.
Hotel Opens Minutes from Downtown Baton Rouge BATON ROUGE, La. -- Hyatt Place Baton Rouge/I-10 - just minutes from downtown Baton Rouge - opens today, bringing a new type of hospitality experience to Louisiana. Hyatt Place, a new kind of hotel that complements Hyatt's full service brands, combines
Publication: Business Wire
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Louisiana Man Arrested for FEMA Hotel Assistance Fraud
JACKSON, Miss., June 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Derrick Shane Miller of New Orleans was arrested on 34 counts of mail fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in its Hotel Assistance program, U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton of the Southern District of Mississippi
Publication: U.S. Newswire
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Homewood Suites By Hilton Opens Hotel In Shreveport, Louisiana
Homewood Suites, a division of the Hilton Hotels, issued the following news release: Homewood Suites by Hilton, the international brand of all-suite, residential-style hotels, today announced the opening of its newest property in Shreveport, Louisiana. The four-story, 123-suite hotel is owned and
Publication: Targeted News Service
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