But on to the capitol!! We drove the 78 miles along the swampy highway 10 to Baton Rouge Sunday morning and ate breakfast at a kind Waffle House before making our big stop.
The capitol as you can see, has a seemingly simple exterior, but does have quite a lot of symbolism, with the steps naming the fifty states, and the state symbol of the pelican used extensively, as well as various patriots and pioneers statues.
Inside is very ornate - Louisiana governor Huey Long fought for the $5 million project in the 1930s during the depression and made the most of it. Its truly very beautiful with heavy gold chandeleirs throughout, relief sculptures lining all of the walls, handpainted ceilings, and a bronze relief map of the state. There's also many life-size statues of prominent Louisiana politicans or war vets, like one governor that even lost his hand (shown) and his campaign slogan was "vote for what is left of me."
Another interesting tidbit is regarding Huey Long, the governor who built the capitol - he was assassinated in the hallway outside of the House of Representatives by a doctor who felt threatened by his strength and tenacity. There have since been movies filmed there, including All of the Kings Men, with Sean Penn. My husband and I have now put that movie on our Netflix list.
Other random note - in 1970, the Louisiana senate in response to what they thought was poor leadership, set off a bomb in the senate chamber, which put a whole in the ceiling and displaced most of the room, as you can imagine. All was restructured and cleaned, except they left a pencil that got stuck in the ceiling, which you can see in this picture, as a reminder of what happened.
Unlike our other capitol visits, we actually took a tour from this kind lady, shown. She was a great guide, who told us these interesting stories but didn't go on so long that we were bored. We also got to ride the elevator (not climb the steps like in Oregon) to the observation deck on the 27th floor, which was an outstanding view of the 27 acre garden and grounds around the building. They claim to be the tallest capitol at 450 feet - thus far, they are. The one that comes the closest is Nebraska's, at 400 feet. We will see!!
We then walked around their grounds which were very nicely kept. There's also a Louisiana history museum in walking distance, and a quaint downtown area, but as it was Sunday morning, nothing was open.
