Baton Rouge, Louisiana

We were headed for the State Library of Louisiana in Baton Rouge. I wanted to look up some news stories about a 1955 computer conference sponsored by and held at LSU. The conference was titled "High-Speed Computer Conference." Several of the people I am researching were there as speakers including Sibyl Rock of ElectroData and John H. McLeod of the Simulation Council Newsletter. There were 366 attendees, mostly from Louisiana and the neighboring area because of the interest in computers throughout the oil industry.

I should have had plenty of time for the research since the library was open until 5:00 p.m. and we left Lafayette at 2:00 p.m. It is only a one hour drive to Baton Rouge, according to both Google and Miss Garmin. Unfortunately, it was the Friday afternoon before Mardi Gras and a lot of people in Texas and Louisiana thought it would be a good idea to drive down to New Orleans! It took 2 hours and 45 minutes to reach our destination. We'll need to make another stop.

As long as we were in the capital, I took several pictures of the capitol building.


That is Huey Long looking on in the center of the garden.


If you are not familiar with Governor Long, the nearby marker gives you a little background.


This Wikipedia article fills in some of the details. If that article strikes you as a bit too rosy of a picture of Long, Real Clear Politics lists Long in their roster of the ten most corrupt politicians.