Noteworthy in Nola » History & Hauntings

Pete Fountain’s Club, circa 1972

Tess — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:15:19 +0000

Pete Fountain is a local legend- a popular clarinetist who moved onto the national stage with the Lawrence Welk show. Known for his warmth and humor as much as for his ‘fat’ style of playing, his reputation continued to build and after he returned home, leading up to his opening this club on Bourbon, only blocks from his friend Al Hirt’s club.

Pete eventually moved his club into the Hilton where it stayed until he semi-retired to Bay St. Louis, MS in 2003, with the intention of playing two nights a week in a local casino, but Hurricane Katrina washed away his home and most of memorabilia collected over the course of his career.

Despite the pain of rebuilding, a mild stroke and a heart attack, Pete is back to preforming at the Hollywood Casino now, and going strong.

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Myrtles, Con’t.

Tess — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:18:02 +0000

The rest of the photos came back this week and have been added to the Myrtles gallery.

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Rex Title Float- 1954

Tess — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:14:56 +0000

And along came Rex. I double checked- the box of slides was marked 1956, but the Krewe of Rex says this was their theme in ’54.

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Mardi Gras ’54- The Gypsy Caravan

Tess — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:58:19 +0000

One of the floats from that group of photos, taken on Canal Street- The Gypsy Caravan. I’ve also included some closeups of the crowd.

Click for larger…

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Mardi Gras 1956- Masked Girls

Tess — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:44:27 +0000

I keep an eye out for older amateur photos of New Orleans, and recently picked up a collection of slides from Mardi Gras 1956 that is half parades and half crowd participation.

I love these…both innocent and what passed for racy at the time. The kid who jumped in beside them, the one watching in awe, the older guy with the camera on the right- love the accidental composition.

Click for bigger…

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Myrtles Plantation

Tess — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:14:27 +0000

Way out in St. Francisville, the Myrtles is a sprawling antebellum plantation filled with oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. It has a romantic beauty by day, and a quiet mystery at night.

Or not so quiet, if you believe the stories- it has been investigated by every paranormal researcher under the sun and declared to be one of the most haunted places in the country.

The house has a long, tragic history. Built in 1794 on an old Indian burial ground, the carpenters were seeing ghosts well before any of the 10 murders took place.

The most famous of these were the ones a slave named Chloe were involved with. She was a house slave, serving plantation owner Judge Woodward’s family…and the Judge in a more personal way. Chloe was afraid she was losing her master’s favor and began eavesdropping to try to figure out if she was going to be sold or sent out to the fields.

After being caught several times with her ear to his door, Woodward cut her left ear off as punishment and threatened her with expulsion from the house.

Chloe decided drastic action was called for. She boiled some oleander leaves and mixed the resulting poison into a chocolate birthday cake. Chloe knew an antidote for the poison and figured that after she miraculously made the Judge’s children well, her position in the house would be forever secure.

Well, not so much. She miscalculated the poison’s strength and the two young daughters died. The other slaves dragged Chloe out to the pond and hung her to convince their master that they didn’t have anything to do with the children’s deaths.

Their mother and surviving brother died in a yellow fever epidemic a few years later and everyone still hangs about the place, one big happy family.

Below is one of the most famous photos taken at the Plantation. Supposedly it’s Chloe, wearing the green kerchief she used to hide her disfigurement, going between the kitchens and the main house, perhaps to deliver the fateful cake.

Closeup:

We visited there years ago around Christmas, photos in the gallery. There are more photos but I’ve sent the negatives off (yes, actual film! Before digital, can you imagine?!) to be professionally scanned. I’ll add them when they return.
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