Tour New Orleans French Quarter

Excerpt from the tour...

"...With a lack of medical test subjects, doctors could do little to study this disease. In 1881 doctors came up with a new theory on the source of the disease, infected mosquitoes. This theory was bravely tested in 1901 by volunteers like John R. Kissinger, a private in the U.S. Army, who allowed himself to be a "guinea pig" in a medical experiment. He allowed the infected mosquitoes to bite him until he became infected. He survived the fever but was confined to a wheel chair for 12 years. For their bravery and personal sacrifice that saved so many lives, Kissinger..."

Do you know what the marble obelisk commemorates in the courtyard?

To find out the answer and to learn more, listen to the Cathedral Garden.

Excerpt from the tour...

"...The Quadroon Balls were lavish parties where rich white men could meet lovely, eligible Quadroon women, who might agree to be their mistresses. A Quadroon was a person whose ancestry was 25% African and was forbidden by law to marry a white person. Marriage in the 1700's and 1800's was a very practical agreement based on money and social status, not on love. If a rich man was interested in love, he often...."

Did you know...
The Orleans Ballroom was sold to the Sisters of the Holy Family
to be used as a convent and a school for African-American children.

To learn more, listen to the Orleans Ballroom Audio

Excerpt from the tour...

"...St. Louis Cathedral is the oldest, active cathedral in the United States although this particular building has only been here since 1794. It replaced two previous structures that were destroyed in the fires of 1788 and 1794. The first fire to destroy the French Quarter occurred in the afternoon of March 21, 1788 and was started when the candles in a chapel of a private home set fire to the curtains and spread to the rest of the building. Since that day was Good Friday..."

To read more, go to St. Louis Cathedral

Listen to the St. Louis Cathedral Tour