Page Toppers

• Crescent City
  (song by Lucinda Williams)
• Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans
  (song by Louis Armstrong)
• Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight
  (song by Rodney Crowell)
• Louisiana Hayride
• Louisiana Lady
  (song by New Riders of the Purple Sage)
• Louisiana Rain
  (song by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)
• Mardi Gras in New Orleans
• Sweet Louisiana
  (song by the Charlie Daniels Band)
• Walking to New Orleans
  (song by Fats Domino)
• Way Down Yonder in New Orleans
  (song by Freddie Cannon)
• You Are My Sunshine

Louisiana Symbols

• Nicknames: Pelican State; Bayou State; Sportsman's Paradise; Child of the Mississippi; The Sugar State; The Creole state
• Slogan: Come as You are, Leave Different
• Motto: Union, justice, can confidence
• Colors: Blue, White and gold
• Songs: Give Me Louisiana (words and music by Doralice Fontane) and You Are My Sunshine
• Environmental Song: Gifts of the Earth
• March: Louisiana My Home Sweet Home
• Folk Dance: Square Dance
• Musical Instrument: Diatonic Accordion (Cajun Accordion)
• Mammal: Black Bear
• Dog: Catahoula Leopard Dog
• Bird: Brown Pelican
• Freshwater Fish: White Perch
• Crustacean: Crawfish
• Reptile: Alligator
• Amphibian: Green Tree Frog
• Insect: Honeybee
• Tree: Bald Cypress
• Flower: Magnolia
• Wildflower: Louisiana Iris
• Fossil: Petrified Palmwood
• Gemstone: Agate
• Beverage: Milk
• Doughnut: Beignet
• Fruit: Strawberry
• Pro Sports Teams: New Orleans Saints (football)

Facts About Louisiana

• Capital: Baton Rouge
• Residents: Louisianians, Louisianans
• State Name Origin: named after King Louis XIV of France
• Admitted to Statehood: 30 Apr 1812
• Order of Admission: 18th state
• Coastline/Shoreline: 397/7,721 miles
• LA has 41% of the nation's wetlands. If you count all the bays and sounds, LA would have the longest shoreline of any of the 48 contiguous states
• Length: 380 miles
• Width: 130 miles
• Area: 51,840 square miles
• Size Rank: 31
• Number of Counties: 64 (LA is the only state that has parishes instead of counties)
• Streams and Rivers: 66,294 miles
• Geographic Center: 3 miles SE of Marksville in Avoyelles Parish
• Mean Elevation: 100 feet
• Highest Point: Driskill Mountain, 535 feet
• Lowest Point: New Orleans, 8 feet below sea level
• Agricultural Products: sugar cane, sweet potatoes, rice, cotton, pecans
• Commercial Products: transportation equipment, natural gas, petroleum products, chemicals, fish, paper, muskrat and other fur, grain export (over 40% of US grain moves though LA ports), tourism
• Average Annual Rainfall: 59.7 inches
• Average Winter Low Temperature: 36 degrees
• Record Low Temperature: -16 degrees (13 Feb 1899 Minden)
• Average Summer High Temperature: 93 degrees
• Record High Temperature: 114 degrees (10 Aug 1936 Plain Dealing)
• More information about Louisiana

Louisiana My Home Sweet Home

(words by Sammie McKenzie and Lou Levoy, music by Castro Carazo)

Chorus:
Louisiana, Louisiana,
It's beauty's always aglow.
Moss covered shade trees
Sway in the cool breeze
While lazy bayous flow.
The sugar cane gleams
Beneath the moonbeams
That light the Heaven's silvr'y dome.
Deep in the Southland
There is a dreamland:
Louisiana, my home, sweet home.

Items of Interest

• Mardi Gras is an ancient custom that originated in southern Europe. It celebrates food and fun just before the 40 days of Lent (a Catholic time of prayer and sacrifice). This custom was brought to LA by the French.
• LA has the greatest concentration of crude oil refineries, natural gas processing plants and petrochemical production facilities in the Western Hemisphere.
• The Battle of New Orleans, which made Andrew Jackson a national hero, was fought two weeks after the War of 1812 had ended and more than a month before the news of the war's end had reached LA.
• Louisiana has the tallest state capitol building in the United States; the building is 450 feet tall with 34 floors.
• The Superdome in New Orleans is the worlds largest steel-constructed room unobstructed by posts.
• Metairie is home to the longest (24 mile) bridge over water in the world, the Lake Pontchartrain causeway.
• The first American army to have African American officers was the confederate LA Native Guards. The Corps d'Afrique at Port Hudson was sworn into service on September 27, 1862.
• Bayou (BUY-you) is a French word for slow-moving "river"
• The golden spike, commemorating the completion of the east-west Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railroad, was driven at Bossier City on July 12, 1884, by Julia "Pansy" Rule. It was the first such spike driven by a woman.

Notable Natives

Some of these people were born here, others just lived a part of their life in the state.

• Louis Armstrong (1900-1971) - jazz musician, entertainer (New Orleans)
• John James Audubon (1785-1851) - naturalist, artist
• Sieur de Jean Baptiste le Moyne Bienville (1680-1768) - explorer, governor of LA colony, founder of New Orleans
• Geoffrey Beene - fashion designer (Haynesville)
• Jim Bowie - adventurer, hero of the Battle of the Alamo (lived in Opelousas)
• Truman Capote (1924-1984) - writer (New Orleans)
• Kitty Carlisle - singer, actress (New Orleans)
• Van Cliburn - concert pianist(Shreveport)
• Michael De Bakey - heart surgeon (Lake Charles)
• Fats Domino - musician (New Orleans)
• Bryant Gumbel - television newscaster (New Orleans)
• Lillian Hellman - playwright, New Orleans)
• Al Hirt - trumpeter, New Orleans)
• Mahalia Jackson - gospel singer (New Orleans)
• Frances Parkinson Keyes - author (Crowley)
• Dorothy Lamour - actress (New Orleans)
• Jerry Lee Lewis - rock and roll singer (Ferriday)
• Huey P. Long - politician (Winnfield)
• Wynton Marsalis - musician (New Orleans)
• Jelly Roll Morton - jazz musician, composer (New Orleans)
• Huey Newton - black activist (New Orleans)
• Paul Prudhomme - chef (Opelousas)
• Cokie Roberts - journalist (New Orleans)
• Kordell Stewart - football player (Marrero)
• Ray Walston - actor (New Orleans)
• Edward Douglas White - supreme court justice (Lafourche Parish)

You know you are from Louisiana if...

• The crawdad mounds in your front yard have over taken the grass.
• You greet people with "Howzyamomma'an'dem?" and hear back "Dey fine!"
• Every so often, you have waterfront property.
• When giving directions you use words like "uptown," "downtown," "backatown," "riverside," "lakeside," "other side of the bayou" or "other side of the levee."
• When you refer to a geographical location "way up North," you are referring to places like Shreveport, Little Rock or Memphis, "where it gets real cold."
• You've ever had Community Coffee.
• You can pronounce Tchoupitoulas but can't spell it.
• You don't worry when you see ships riding higher in the river than the top of your house.
• You judge a po-boy by the number of napkins used.
• The waitress at your local sandwich shop tells you a fried oyster po-boy "dressed" is healthier than a Caesar salad.
• You can eat Popeye's, Haydel's and Zapp's for lunch and wash it down with Barq's and several Abitas, without losing it all on your stoop.
• The four seasons in your year are: crawfish, shrimp, crab, and King Cake.
• You "wrench" your hands in the sink with an onion bar to get the crawfish smell off.
• You don't learn until high school that Mardi Gras is not a national holiday.
• You believe that purple, green and gold look good together.
• Your last name isn't pronounced the way it's spelled.
• You know what a nutria rat is but you still pick it to represent your baseball team.
• You have spent a summer afternoon on the Lake Pontchartrain seawall catching blue crabs.
• You describe a color as "K & B Purple."
• You like your rice and politics dirty.
• You pronounce the largest city in the state as "Nawlins."
• You know those big roaches can fly, but you're able to sleep at night anyway.
• You assume everyone has mosquito swarms in their backyard.
• You realize the rainforest is less humid than Louisiana.
• You learn that a seat belt makes a pretty good branding iron...
• You discover that you can get a sunburn through your car window...
• When out of town, you stop and ask someone where there is a drive-through Daiquiri place, and they look at you like you have three heads.
• You have flood insurance.
• Your burial plot is six feet over rather than six feet under.
• You consider a Bloody Mary a light breakfast.
• You push little old ladies out of the way to catch Mardi Gras throws.
• You leave a parade with footprints on the top of your hands.
• You have a parade ladder in your shed.
• Your first sentence was "Throw me something mistah" and your first drink was from a go-cup.
• You worry about a deceased family member returning in spring floods.
• You reply to anything and everything about life here with "Only in Nahlins".
• You have a monogrammed go-cup.
• You get on a bus marked "Cemeteries" and don’t think twice.
• You shake out your shoes before putting them on.
• Your sunglasses fog up when you step outside.
• No matter where else you go in the world, you are always disappointed in the food.
• You get up in the morning and start cooking a pot of rice before you give any thought to what you'll fix for dinner.
• You ask, "How dey running?" and "Are dey fat?" when you're inquiring about seafood quality. When a hurricane is imminent
• When it starts to rain, you cover your beer instead of your head.
• You call tomato sauce "red gravy."
• You eat sno-balls instead of throwing them.
• Your house payment is less than your air conditioning bill.
• Your grandparents are called "Maw Maw" and "Paw Paw."
• You fall asleep to the soothing sounds of four box fans.
• No one eats healthy. Fried Batter is actually a menu item in some restaurants.
• You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Louisiana.