From Living in Louisiana.
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Subject: A little Louisiana history lesson . . .
If Hurricane Katrina causing the levees to break in New Orleans is the only thing you know about Louisiana , here are a few more interesting facts about the Bayou State:
* Louisiana has the tallest state capitol building in the nation at 450 feet.
* The Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans was the largest enclosed stadium in the world when it was built and for two decades thereafter.
* The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is the longest over-water bridge in the world at 23.87 miles.
* Louisiana 's 6.5 million acres of wetlands are the greatest wetland area in America.
* The oldest city in the Louisiana Purchase Territory is Natchitoches, Louisiana founded in 1714.
* The first bottler of Coca-Cola, Joseph Biedenharn, lived in Monroe, Louisiana (he first bottled Coke across the river in Vicksburg, MS), and was eventually one of the founders of Delta Air Lines, initially called Delta Air Service.
* Delta Airlines got its start in Monroe, Louisiana when County Agent, C.E. Woolman, decided to try dusting the Boll weevil that was destroying the cotton crops in the Mississippi River Delta from an airplane. The airline began as the crop dusting operation called Huff Daland Dusters, Incorporated. That company was founded on May 30, 1924, in Macon, Georgia, and moved to Monroe, Louisiana, in 1925. They flew a Huff-Daland Duster, the first true crop duster, designed to combat the boll weevil infestation of those cotton crops in the delta.
* Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was the largest historically black university in America between 1970 and 1990.
* Baton Rouge was the site of an American Revolutionary related battle outside of the original 13 colonies, in which Spanish forces defeated British forces.
* The formal transfer of the Louisiana Purchase was made at the Cabildo building in New Orleans on December 20, 1803.
* The staircase at Chrétien Point, in Sunset, Louisiana was copied for Tara in "Gone with the Wind."
* Louisiana is the No. 1 producer of crawfish, alligators and shallots in America.
* Louisiana produces 24 percent of the nation's salt, the most in America.
* Much of the world's food, coffee, and oil pass through the Port of New Orleans.
* Tabasco, a Louisiana product, holds the second oldest food trademark in the U.S. Patent Office.
* Steen's Syrup Mill in Abbeville, Louisiana is the world's largest syrup plant producing sugar cane syrup.
* America's oldest rice mill is in New Iberia, Louisiana at KONRIKO Co.
* The International Joke Telling Contest is held annually in Opelousas, Louisiana.
* LSU (The Ole War Skule) in Baton Rouge has the distinction of contributing the most officers to WW II after the U.S. military academies.
* The Louisiana Hayride radio show helped Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash achieve stardom. It was broadcast from KWKH Radio in Shreveport Louisiana from 1948 to 1960.
* The term Uncle Sam was coined on the wharfs of New Orleans before Louisiana was a U.S. territory as goods labeled U.S. were from "Uncle Sam."
* The American version of the game of craps was brought first to New Orleans in 1813 as betting was a common activity on the wharves. It was a derivative of the European version and was begun there by Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, a wealthy gambler and politician descended from colonial Louisiana landowners.
* When states had their own currency, the Louisiana Dix (French for ten) was a favored currency for trade. English speakers called them Dixies and coined the term Dixieland.
* New Orleans is the home of the very first pharmacy in America at 514 Chartres Street in the French Quarter. These early medical mixtures became known as cocktails (guess they were good for what ails ya?), coining yet another term. This bit of history is due to Louis Joseph Dufilho, Jr. of New Orleans, who became America’s first licensed pharmacist and opened the shop in 1823 that is now home to the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum.
* New Orleans is the birthplace of Jazz, the only true American art form.
Jazz gave birth to the Blues and Rock and Roll music.
Viva La Louisiana !!!