Andrew Higgins: The New Orleans Boatbuilder Who Won World War II
On D-Day, 160,000 soldiers stormed Normandy's beaches. Most arrived in flat-bottomed boats designed and built in New Orleans by Andrew Higgins. Eisenhower said: "Andrew Higgins is the man who won t...
Norbert Rillieux: The New Orleans Genius Who Sweetened the World
Every time you put sugar in your coffee, you benefit from the work of a free man of color from New Orleans who solved one of the 19th century's most important engineering problems. Norbert Rillieux...
Tom Dempsey: The Saint Who Kicked the Impossible
On November 8, 1970, with two seconds left at Tulane Stadium, Saints kicker Tom Dempsey lined up for a 63-yard field goal. Nobody had ever made a kick from that distance. Dempsey was born without t...
Paul Morphy: New Orleans' Chess Genius Who Conquered the World
Paul Morphy taught himself chess by watching others play, dominated every opponent on the planet by 21, then quit the game entirely. Born in 1837 on Royal Street, he conquered Europe's best players...
Jean Lafitte: New Orleans' Original Gangster
Nobody pushed the boundaries quite like Jean Lafitte, a pirate, smuggler, and war hero who ran a criminal empire from the swamps and then helped Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans.The Pir...
Baroness Pontalba: The Woman Who Built Jackson Square
If you've ever stood in Jackson Square and admired the red brick buildings with intricate cast iron balconies, you were looking at the work of Micaela Almonester, the Baroness de Pontalba, who surv...
P.B.S. Pinchback: America's First Black Governor Was from New Orleans
In December 1872, P.B.S. Pinchback became the acting governor of Louisiana, making him the first person of African descent to serve as governor of a U.S. state. He held the office for 35 days.Born ...
Bernard de Marigny: The Gambler Who Built a Neighborhood
If you have ever rolled dice in a casino, walked down Frenchmen Street, or spent a night in the Marigny, you can thank a Creole aristocrat who inherited a fortune at 15 and spent the rest of his li...
Ernie K-Doe: The Emperor Who Made New Orleans His Kingdom
There are exactly two types of people in this world: those who know that Ernie K-Doe once declared himself the Emperor of the Universe, and those who haven't been paying attention. In a city full o...
Professor Longhair: The Soul of New Orleans Piano
There is a moment you hear if you spend enough time listening to New Orleans music. A piano line that feels like it is rolling and tumbling all at once, syncopated in a way that makes your body mov...
Jean-Louis Dolliole: The Free Man Who Built New Orleans
Walk through the French Quarter or Treme on any given afternoon and you will pass homes that have stood for nearly two centuries. The stucco is cracked in places, the shutters have stories to tell,...
John James Audubon: The Artist Who Painted New Orleans Wild
If you have ever taken a lazy Sunday stroll through Audubon Park, dodging joggers and watching the oak trees do their ancient, sprawling thing, you have walked in the footsteps of one of America's ...
Kate Chopin: New Orleans Made Her a Writer
New Orleans has a way of cracking people open. You arrive thinking you know who you are, and then the city shows you all the parts of yourself you had been keeping under lock and key. For Kate Chop...
Lafcadio Hearn: The Outsider Who Understood New Orleans Best
Every now and then, somebody arrives in New Orleans from somewhere far away and falls so hard for this city that they end up understanding it better than people who were born here. Lafcadio Hearn w...
Brene Brown and Her New Orleans Family Roots
There is something about growing up in a city where strangers greet each other on the sidewalk, where your neighbor brings you a plate when they cook too much red beans, and where showing up for ea...
Buddy Bolden: The Father of Jazz from New Orleans
The Loudest Man in New Orleans (You Never Heard) There is a small, weathered shotgun house on First Street in Central City that holds one of the biggest stories in American music. No plaque screams...
Louis Prima: The Wildest Entertainer New Orleans Ever Made
There is a certain kind of New Orleans energy that cannot be taught, bottled, or faked. It is the energy of a city that treats every Tuesday like a reason to celebrate and every funeral like a reas...
Allen Toussaint: The Songwriter Behind New Orleans
If you have ever tapped your foot to a New Orleans song, there is a very good chance Allen Toussaint had something to do with it. As a songwriter, producer, arranger, and pianist, Toussaint shaped ...
Mahalia Jackson: New Orleans' Queen of Gospel
A Voice Born in Black Pearl If you walk the quiet blocks between St. Charles Avenue and Leake Avenue in Uptown New Orleans, you are standing in the neighborhood called Black Pearl. It is a small, p...
James Booker: The Bayou Maharajah of New Orleans
If you have ever sat at a piano bar in New Orleans and watched someone play something so good it made the whole room go quiet, you have felt the ghost of James Booker. They called him the Bayou Mah...
