Baton Rouge: the capital on the great river

Capital of Louisiana on the Mississippi, Baton Rouge is home to the tallest state capitol building in the United States alongside a historic centre marked by a century of French-Spanish history.

The centre, overlooking the Mississippi and dominated by the state capitol skyscraper, is easily explored on foot.

The Louisiana State Capitol, at one hundred thirty-seven meters tall, remains the tallest state building in the United States, built in the nineteen-thirties at Governor Huey Long's behest.

Just steps away, the Old Capitol, an nineteenth-century structure in Gothic castle style on the river's edge, houses a museum on the state's political history.

Descending toward the Mississippi, one walks along the city levee, where large cargo ships can be observed rising the river inland, loaded with merchandise.

As evening falls, the Spanish Town neighborhood, the city's oldest, preserves low Creole-style houses surrounded by lush gardens.

Governor Huey Long, who wanted the new Capitol building as a symbol of his political power, was assassinated inside the building itself in 1935, just four years after its inauguration.

Baton Rouge, whose name means 'red stick' in French, takes its name from a boundary pole painted red that early French explorers spotted in the eighteenth century.