| January 1-15 |
| New Years Day, January 1, 1935 The Tulane Green Wave defeated the Temple Owls, 20-14, in the first Sugar Bowl game at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans today in 1935. The game had been the brainchild of Colonel James M. Thomson, publisher of the New Orleans Item, and Sports Editor Fred Digby. The Mid-Winter Sports Association of New Orleans was formed in 1934 to formulate plans for an annual New Year’s Day football classic. The Association selected Tulane and unbeaten Temple to play in the first game, after considering Columbia and Colgate to represent the east.for his proposed football game. 22,206 fans watched Temple take a 14–0 lead before Tulane came back to win. January 2, 1860 Today in 1860, the Louisiana State Seminary and Military Academy in Pineville (pictured) held its first day of classes, after being established by the legislature in 1856. The faculty included Superintendent William T. Sherman, and classes were offered in engineering, chemistry, Latin, Greek, English, and mathematics. Classes would be disrupted the following year after the outbreak of the Civil War and resume in 1865. In 1869, fire ravaged the campus and the school was forced to move "temporarily" to Baton Rouge. One hundred years later, LSU would return to Rapides Parish when LSU- Alexandria registered its first students in 1960. In 2001, LSU-A would begin offering four- year degrees. January 3, 1959 Dr. Momus Alexander Morgus began his Saturday night broadcasts from the House of Shock in New Orleans today in 1959. During breaks in science fiction and horror movies, Dr. Morgus (New Orleans actor Sid Noel) and his trusty sidekicks Chopsley (Tommy George) frequently conducted ill-considered experiments “guaranteed” to make a vast fortune to satisfy the insatiable back rent demands for of Morgus’s landlady Alma Fetish (Janet Shea). Since the original show went off the air in the late 1980’s, Dr. Morgus has taken time from representing Earth before the "Higher Order", a super-scientific secret society developing higher intelligences throughout the universe, to revive his television career on various outlets. January 4, 1853 Today in 1853, Solomon Northup finally gained his freedom from slavery by proving that he had been born a free man of color in New York in 1829. In 1841, he had been kidnapped near Saratoga Springs, New York, and “sold south.” Under the name of Platt, he was enslaved on plantations in Rapides and Avoyelles Parish. After he was released, he returned to Glen Falls where he worked as a carpenter until his death in 1863. His memoirs, published in 1853, were made into the film Twelve Years a Slave, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2014. January 5, 1815 Today in 1815, Captain Henry Miller Shreve's steamboat Enterprise entered the Red River, sailing as far as Alexandria. Within a few years of this voyage, Shreve would begin clearing the “Great Raft”, a one-hundred-mile long build-up of fallen trees and other vegetation that had impeded navigation of the Red River for over five hundred years. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Raft extended from Campti in Natchitoches Parish to the area around Shreveport. Shreve concluded this work in 1838, having removed the last impediment to navigation on the Red River. For his efforts, the city of Shreveport was named after him. January 6, 2005 The Louisiana peach industry took a hit this week in 2005 when the federal Environmental Protection Agency outlawed the use of methyl bromide to control a wide variety of pests in agriculture and shipping. For decades, the rich farmlands of North Louisiana had been famous for the production of juicy and delicious peaches, prompting their celebration at the annual Ruston Peach Festival. The owner of Mitcham Farms, the largest producer of Ruston peaches, said that the orchard's production had dropped 20 percent in the ten years following the ruling. Producing trees were starting to die at an earlier age and fruits from still-productive were much smaller than normal. January 7, 1985 Mer Rouge native Lou Brock was elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame this week in 1985. Brock had become the all-time major league stolen base leader in 1977, when he broke Ty Cobb's career record of 892 stolen bases, which had been one of the most durable in baseball history. After finishing high school in Mer Rouge, Brock attended Southern University and tried out for the baseball team to secure an athletic scholarship. In his second year as a Jaguar, he hit for a .500 average. Southern won the NAIA baseball championship during his junior year, and “Sweet Lou” was selected for the 1959 Pan American Games. January 8, 1815 Nobody knew it at the time, but the War of 1812 was already over when the Battle of New Orleans was fought today in 1815. The peace treaty had been signed at Ghent in Belgium on December 24, 1814, but by that time a dangerous British army had already been put ashore in St. Bernard Parish and was working its way to the River Road it would take into the center of New Orleans. An American army, under the command of Andrew Jackson and supplemented by local militia, pirates, free men of color and others erected fortifications near Chalmette and turned away the British. January 9, 1867 Lieutenant General John Archer Lejeune, 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps, was born in Pointe Coupee Parish this week in 1867. He earned a B.A. degree at LSU and secured an appointment as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, from which he was graduated in 1888. During his more than forty years of service with the Corps, he led the famed Second Division (Army) in World War I, and served as Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps from June 1920 to March 1929. Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, now bears his name, and he is often referred to as "the greatest of all Leathernecks.” January 10, 1811 The “German Coast Uprising,” the largest revolt of African American slaves prior to the Civil War was finally suppressed by local militia and planters today in 1811. The uprising had originated on the east bank of the Mississippi River in what are now St. John the Baptist and St. Charles Parishes. Between 64 and 125 enslaved men marched from plantations near LaPlace in the direction of New Orleans, collecting 200-500 men along the way. During their twenty-mile march, the men burned five plantation houses, as well as several sugarhouses, and crops. Two whites and ninety-five blacks were killed in during the course of the two-day march. January 11, 1877 This week in 1877, both Democrat Francis T. Nicholls and Republican Stephen B. Packard claimed victory in election for governor and were sworn into office. The outcome of the gubernatorial election in November, 1876, had been disputed after Nicholls had garnered a majority of 8,000 votes, but the Republican-controlled State Returning Board cited irregularities and declared Packard the winner. The conflict would eventually be resolved as part of the Compromise of 1877. In return for collecting the ten electoral votes needed to elect Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to the Presidency, Hayes recognized the Democrat Nicholls as the winner of the gubernatorial election. January 12, 2004 Louisiana's first elected female governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, was sworn into office today in 2004. Blanco had been born in New Iberia, where her grandfather and father had been small businessmen. She attended Mount Carmel Academy and later graduated from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1964. Following college, she taught business at Breaux Bridge High School and held several public offices, including a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives. In 1988, she became the first woman elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission, and prior to running for governor, she had served as Lieutenant Governor from 1996-2004. January 13, 1992 Today in 1992, Melinda Schwegmann was sworn in as Louisiana's first female lieutenant governor. She was born in Austin, Texas, attended LSU, and completed her bachelor's degree in education at the University of New Orleans. Her marriage to Public Service Commissioner John F. Schwegmann of Metairie brought her into the worlds of politics and groceries. She served on the Schwegmann Giant Supermarket board of directors. In the 1991 election, she upset incumbent Republican Lieutenant Governor Paul Hardy by calling herself "a housewife and a nonprofit volunteer.” Some speculated that she benefited from coattails of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Edwin Edwards, who won his fourth term over David Duke. January 14, 1893 Desiree's Baby, a short story of miscegenation in antebellum Louisiana by Kate Chopin, scandalized America when it was published in Vogue today in 1893. Kate O'Flaherty had been born in St. Louis in 1851, where she attended school before marrying Oscar Chopin and moving to his native New Orleans in 1870 and then to Cloutierville on the Red River near Natchitoches in 1879. From 1889 until 1902, she wrote numerous short stories for children and adults published in magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, The Century and Harper's Youth's Companion. Desirée's Baby was her best-known work and is still in print. January 15, 1949 Today was moving day for Isabella the Ghost of Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. According to legend, Isabella was a beautiful maiden who lived in the original Bullard mansion on campus. On the eve of her marriage, he was killed in a duel and she went mad from grief and mourning and plunged a dagger into her heart. Her spirit roamed Bullard mansion, East Hall and the Music Hall until they were torn down. Just before the Music Hall was dismantled, a group of young men, dressed in sheets, coaxed Isabella from the doomed building to her next residence in Caldwell Hall on January 15, 1949. |
