Claiborne Cottage Map

This map of the Claiborne Cottage location is from 1889. Click on the image to make it larger. 

 

Here is the same map shown in comparison with a current map from Google Maps. For the most part, they are similar, except for the road location crossing the Bogue Falaya River coming in from the east.

100 Years Ago This Week

What was going on 100 years ago this week? The following link is provided by the Library of Congress and its Chronicling America service. CLICK HERE for a link to the St. Tammany Farmer edition of February 24, 1917. Some of the headlines are "Farmers Short Courses at Waldheim, Progress and Pilgrim Rest Schools, Mandeville to consider sea wall matter today, and The Dancing School.

Cars

People liked to take pictures of their cars and other vehicles in the early 20th Century. Here are a few of them from various St. Tammany Parish communities. 

Slidell's first motorized school bus, around 1925. The people in the picture are William Welsh, the bus driver, and his children Lenwood and Mary.

Lyon High School Bus

A 1898 License Plate

License plate law 1900

Gause Blvd in 1985 - Map

Last week I posted the cartoon map I drew of Olde Towne Slidell in 1985.Here is how Gause Blvd. looked on the map from 32 years ago. Gause Blvd is shown in three sections, east, west, and in the middle. It is shown in yellow to help in orientation. Click on the images to make them larger. Some of the businesses that were there in 1985 are labeled. 

 

Gause Blvd. West

Gause Blvd. 

Gause Blvd. East

Herb Jahncke, Mardi Gras Float Designer

Herbert Grant Jahncke, Jr., of Covington designed and built Mardi Gras floats, artistic creations that evoked memories of  flambeau-lit Carnival parades of the late 19th century

Herb Jahncke

He died on Tuesday, December 4, 2007, at the age of 66. Mr. Jahncke, whose father was Rex, king of Carnival in 1966, grew up steeped in the New Orleans’ signature celebration. From his childhood, he was determined to get involved in helping to make it happen, said an official of the Krewe of Proteus, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Jahncke’s firm, Royal Artists Inc, had a long list of clients. For about three decades, the firm’s artists and builders turned out floats for the Proteus, Hermes, Chaos and Krewe d’Etat parades in New Orleans plus the Mystics of Time and Conde Cavaliers in Mobile, Alabama.
“They were just plain gorgeous,” said Elizabeth Jahncke, Mr. Jahncke’s wife.

Although super size, animated floats, bristling with fiber optics and other electronic wizardry have taken hold in recent decades, Mr. Jahncke stayed with traditional designs, the Proteus official said.

“Herb Jahncke was one of the few people left in the world that essentially could maintain the traditions and have the knowledge to re-create and rebuild what we would call an old-line old-fashioned Mardi Gras parade”, he said. “He chose that path. He was one of the very special people, not widely known outside of New Orleans, that contributed mightily to the heritage and showed to the current ages what a parade looked like.”

Mr. Jahncke gained respect from his competitors, including Blaine Kern, who designs for the traditionally minded Rex organization as well as Bacchus, a modern megakrewe.
“We complemented each other, because you need the old, which he was presenting, and the brassy, which I was doing,” Kern said. 

“He turned out to be a doggone good float painter and sculptor, and more importantly, a wonderful competitor and a straight shooter.”

An honor graduate from Washington and Lee University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, he could have been anything, the Proteus official said, “but he was an artist, and he wanted to apply a lot of that into the Mardi Gras scene in new Orleans. . . . He was dedicated to Mardi Gras, and he gave us a fabulous product.”

Mr. Jahncke’s work didn‘t stop with the floats. The Proteus official said he also worked with seamstresses to give them an idea of what would look right on each float.

Although Herb’s approach was traditional, he wasn’t above taking liberties.
In a 1989 interview, he discussed one parade with the theme of the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. “We had more floats than Andersen had stories, so he made up two,” he said. “That’s the fun. Mardi Gras is a party.”

Thanks goes to Robert Jahncke who put together the Herb Jahncke website showcasing his accomplishments and creations. 

1964 Graduation Class Poster

Here's the 1964 graduation class photo poster for St. Tammany High in Slidell. Click on the image to make it larger. 

Covington Grammar School Photograph

Here is a slow video pan across a large 1930 photograph of students attending Covington Grammar School. Click on the video triangle to start the movie, then click on the full screen symbol [ ] in the lower right (next to the You Tube logo) to view a larger size. 

Boats Ready To Go

Here's a photo of a couple of boats in the river at Madisonville ready to go for a ride during the Wooden Boat Festival.  The picture has been run through a watercolor painting filter. Click on the image to make it larger. 

But for the folks who like to have more power, here's a selection of old outboard motors on display at the nearby Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum.

Olde Towne Map in 1985

Here's the pictorial map of the Slidell Olde Towne area I drew in 1985, some 32 years ago. Many of the businesses that were there at that time are labeled. Click on the image to make it larger.

Madisonville Library Opens Exhibit

In conjunction with the 200th anniversary of the 1817 founding of the town of Madisonville, the public library branch there opened a special exhibit of maps and photographs today. A number of people turned out for the opening ceremonies for the event, watching videos produced by Frank "Rusty" Burns in 2010, and viewing the interactive photo displays along the hallway leading to the meeting room.