Richard Campanella
Contributing Writer| The New Orleans Advocate at The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
New Orleans geographer; author; professor and associate dean for research-Tulane School of Architecture; Louisiana Writer Award; Chevalier-Palmes Académiques
Articles
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3 weeks ago |
nola.com | Richard Campanella
Ships anchoring. Cargo in transit. Sailors milling about. A diverse population, with more than its share of taverns and cabarets. Ah, New Orleans, right? Not quite. This was the Balize—or La Balise, meaning seamark or beacon in French. Located in lowermost Plaquemines Parish on the extreme fringes of the North American continent, this windswept shoal was a place of many names, various spellings and frequent reconstructions across at least three different sites.
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1 month ago |
nola.com | Richard Campanella
Editor’s Note: The following is a condensed excerpt from the latest book by Tulane geographer and Times-Picayune contributing writer Richard Campanella, "Crossroads, Cutoffs, and Confluences: Origins of Louisiana Cities, Towns, and Villages" (LSU Press). Please see original for sources and endnotes. Few places offered better access to ecological resources than the basins of lakes Maurepas, Pontchartrain and Borgne.
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2 months ago |
nola.com | Richard Campanella
Few words distressed navigators more than “the bar” — referring to the sandbar that regularly obstructed the mouth of the Mississippi River — until a remarkable engineer from St. Louis solved the problem, starting 150 years ago this month. Sedimentation had vexed river navigation since the founding of Louisiana, but the 1870s saw the worst of it. "The Port of New Orleans,” wrote historian Walter M.
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Feb 27, 2025 |
nola.com | Richard Campanella
In the glare of its notoriety, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that Bourbon Street is a neighborhood street — with homes, residents and culture. What may be particularly surprising, especially during this Carnival weekend, is just how ordinary Bourbon Street was during the first half of its three-century history.
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Dec 5, 2024 |
nola.com | Richard Campanella
Two centuries ago, the largest cities in our region — considered at the time to be the southwestern United States — were New Orleans and Natchez, Mississippi. Being both a seaport and riverport as well as state capital, New Orleans had over 12 times more residents. But Natchez dominated the interior cotton trade on which New Orleans depended, and as settlers moved into the Mississippi Valley, its exports would only grow.
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In the latest @64parishes from Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, see my piece on the Louisiana towns founded on Mississippi River oxbows @TulaneArch https://t.co/2SSijenlAf
See the latest @PRCNO Preservation in Print for an excerpt from "Crossroads, Cutoffs, and Confluences" (@lsupress), my analysis of the spatial origins of some 500 Louisiana cities, town and villages. https://t.co/8EOhbbHLjs @TulaneArch https://t.co/jSQP0UOpHB
An interview I did in January with Current Affairs on Bourbon Street, based on my 2014 book, "Bourbon Street: A History" from @lsupress https://t.co/XGN6WB2vtM