For: Baton Rouge (restaurant)

Baton Rouge (French: Bâton-Rouge in English, and in French) is the capital city of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish which contains 430,812 residents. The Greater Baton Rouge population is approximately 770,037.

Baton Rouge is located in the southeast portion of the state along the Mississippi River. It owes its location and its historical importance to its site upon Istrouma Bluff, the first bluff upriver from the Mississippi delta, which protects the city's 229,661 residents from flooding and other natural disasters. In addition to the natural protection, the city sports a levee system stretching from the bluff southward to protect the riverfront and the southern agricultural areas.

Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, and port center of the American South. The Port of Baton Rouge is the ninth largest in the United States in terms of weight.

The Baton Rouge region, like that of other capital cities in the United States, is called the "Capital Area."

History

main: History of Baton Rouge

Beginnings

Baton Rouge dates back to 1699, when French explorer Sieur d'Iberville leading an exploration party up the Mississippi River saw a reddish cypress pole festooned with bloody animals and fish that marked the boundary between Houma and Bayou Goula tribal hunting grounds. They called the tree "le baton rouge," or red stick. The native name for the site had been Istrouma. From evidence found along the Mississippi, Comite, and Amite rivers, and in three native mounds remaining in the city, archaeologists have been able to date habitation of the Baton Rouge area to 8000 B.C.

Capital City Progresses

Since European settlement, Baton Rouge has functioned under seven governing bodies: France, England, Spain, Louisiana, the Florida Republic, the Confederate States, and the United States. In the mid-1700s when French-speaking settlers of Acadia in Canada's maritime, were driven into exile by British forces, many took up residence in rural Louisiana. Popularly known as Cajuns, descendants of the Acadians maintained a separate culture that immeasurably enriched the Baton Rouge area. Incorporated in 1817, Baton Rouge became Louisiana's state capital in 1849. Architect James Dakin was hired to design the new Capital building in Baton Rouge, and rather than mimic the federal Capitol Building in Washington, as so many other states had done, he conceived a Neo-Gothic medieval castle overlooking the Mississippi, complete with turrets and crenelations. During the first half of the nineteenth century the city grew steadily as the result of steamboat trade and transportation; at the outbreak of the American Civil War the population was 5,500 people. The Civil War halted economic progress but did not actually touch the town until it was occupied by Union forces in 1862.The Confederates gave up Baton Rouge without a fight, deciding to consolidate their forces elsewhere, during which time, the state capital had been moved to Shreveport, but it was returned to Baton Rouge in 1880.