“Weeds, snakes, and a contaminated lake.”

These were the swimming conditions that New Orleans provided for African Americans prior to the opening of Lincoln Beach. In 1938, Sam Zemurray, president of United Fruit Company, deeded a 2.3-acre tract of land to the city. The following year, the Orleans Parish Levee Board purchased the land. The tract was along the lakefront in the Little Woods section of New Orleans East. The city asserted that Little Woods was a ‘separate but equal’ recreational area, in compliance with the standard established in Plessy v. Ferguson. However, many African-Americans recall a 12-mile trip on an unpaved road that was followed by crossing active railroad tracks, and waste from nearby fishing camps which polluted the swimming water.

African-Americans continued to seek out other options so they could stay cool in the tropical summers. Some visited the nearby Seabrook in spite of police harassment and the city’s refusal to provide lighting or lifeguards. The most impactful tragedy at Seabrook occurred in 1931 when a group of six family members all drowned together due to a sinkhole in the lake. Such drownings became increasingly common as structural improvements were made along the North Shore of the lake. Real estate investments increased the value of homes in burgeoning white communities. Additionally, the white sand that was imported for the newly constructed and segregated Pontchartrain Beach eroded the South Shore.

After 25 years of struggle for recreational equality and environmental racism, the Orleans Levee Board invested $500,000 in building a lakeside amusement park for African-American citizens, who comprised about 200,000 — or 32% — of the city’s population in 1950. More extensively developed than the park designated in 1939, Lincoln Beach was a better-equipped site. Some remember tickets for free admission to Lincoln Beach that came in Sunbeam Bread. There was a Midway with rides, a ferris wheel, rollercoaster, and games of chance. Patrons dined at the Carver House Restaurant, and danced atop its terrace.

There were two swimming pools with a lifeguard corps and a swimming teacher, Edward X. Dunn. One of the pools was named in honor of Capt. Nolan McNeal, a former slave and fighter for black progress. Highlights at Lincoln Beach included bathing beauty contests and diving expositions. It was also the site of the annual Negro State Fairs. Musical artists included Fats Domino, Irma Thomas, Earl King, The Neville Brothers, Nat King Cole, The Ink Spots, Ernie K-Doe, Dr. John, and many others.

Despite marked improvements, most African-Americans recognized that Lincoln Beach was a park of lesser quality than the Whites-only Pontchartrain Beach. Lincoln Beach was a quarter-mile in length in contrast to Pontchartrain Beach’s half-mile, and it was difficult to arrive at, but it was a place where African-Americans produced culture through their bodies. And as many have said, “It was a place where I felt safe.”

Since its closure following the desegregation of public accommodations under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Lincoln Beach has become dilapidated. It barely shows the skeleton of what it once was. As soon as Pontchartrain desegregated, the Orleans Levee Board abandoned caring for the beach. And once Pontchartrain Beach integrated, owner Harry Batt disinvested in his own property. White violence was initially enacted against African-Americans that began to integrate Pontchartrain. Eventually, whites stopped attending the park at all.

Mr. Leon A. Waters [researcher, author, and native of New Orleans] took me [storyteller Danielle Abrams] to Lincoln Beach in the summer of 2018. We stood on the levee looking down into a forest that blanketed the beach. Mr. Waters said to me, “They let that forest grow so we’d forget it [segregation] ever happened.”

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Palmer Park in the first half of the 20th century was used primarily as an official public space, with an emphasis on formal and public gatherings. The park was the site of events like a 1911 “patriotic” Mother’s Day program, featuring speeches by the mayor and an army general, and a performance by a navy band; a formal review of Boy Scout troops as part of the national committee meeting in the city in 1918; meetings of the 17th Ward Civic League; and performances of classical music and marching bands. Proposed changes and use of the park for non-formal activities, especially sports, were opposed by many local residents, led by Tinette Lichtenstein. Born in 1884, Lichtenstein was an active participant in various civic organizations; she became the first woman in the city to run for elected office when she ran for the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1923. Lichtenstein was also a frequent contributor to the Times Picayune, having her own column entitled “Sunshine News and Notes” in the 1910’s.

Despite the refined "sunshine" in her column, Lichtenstein was usually the voice of opposition to change in Palmer Park, writing numerous letters to the editor in the Times Picayune over several decades. She wrote against the proposed wading pool in 1937 because the park was “used mostly by nurses attending babies or accompanied by small children, by recuperating invalids, pupils, by adults, and by persons waiting for buses. Encouraging children to gather in Palmer Park would endanger their lives, because of traffic hazards,” a refrain used repeatedly in her written responses to new measures for the park. In 1938, she opposed a proposed bus shelter and community house in the park, arguing there was already plenty of seating in the park with the iron benches. She also argued that the primary purpose of the park was light recreation, and that the house would obstruct views and thus be a safety issue. In 1941, she opposed the addition of an auditorium because it would “deprive the underprivileged children of the breathtaking space” for which Palmer Park was dedicated. In 1943, she argued against a proposed public toilet, calling it an “indecent outrage” to add the toilet to a park located in a neighborhood that was “well built with far better than average homes.” She noted a bus waiting room recently built nearby had been plagued by “unsanitary conditions, wrong usage, immorality, and danger to neighborhood and passersby.” She signed the letter:

“Yours in Constructive, not destructive measures,

Tinette Lichtenstein

Zoning Consultant and Authoritative Representative of Property Owners in Vicinity of Palmer Park”

Her efforts were largely successful as nearly all changes she opposed were defeated. Her string of success ended in one of her last efforts, her opposition to the World War II Monument. Lichtenstein argued it was “little short of criminal, in my opinion, to make a memorial park of Palmer Park." She argued the funding and the material needed for the monument should have gone to support the war effort; after it was built, but before its dedication, she argued the funding should have been used to support living veterans and it should be installed in the Carrollton Cemetery instead. She believed the monument would turn the space into a memorial park, which would “sadden little children and adults, expectant mothers, shell-shocked veterans, etc.” Despite her efforts, the memorial was installed in May 1945.

Lichtenstein died in 1955, after again defeating an effort to have swimming pools placed in Palmer Park, but her legacy lived on. A 1963 article entitled “A History of ‘Those Things’ in Palmer Park Is Cited” argued that Lichtenstein was responsible for the concrete blocks, installed in the 1910’s throughout the park in an effort to prevent football and baseball from being played in the park. An article five years later revealed the blocks had been created to beautify the park; urns with flowers were supposed to be placed on top but the urn maker died before the project was completed. The blocks, without any inscription to indicate their purpose, were attributed to the efforts of Lichtenstein to prevent sports in the park. Her status as the defender of the status quo in Palmer Park was firmly entrenched.

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In the early 20th century Carrollton residents resisted attempts to permit sports recreation in Palmer Park, despite the fact that it was a public space. An effort to convert the park into a baseball field for the PSAL youth baseball league was defeated in 1918, as was an attempt by the city to add proposed swimming pools in 1924. A 1929 proposal to add tennis courts, favored by women but opposed by men; and a 1937 proposal by the mayor to add a wading pool were also defeated. The Times-Picayune agreed with the opposition to the tennis courts, arguing the park was a place of beauty and tennis courts were not beautiful. Neighbors were adamant about preserving the park as a tranquil space and keeping out sports and play. They feared the "rowdyism" associated with sports. A 1927 Times-Picayune article noted nearby residents calling the police because kids were playing football in the park.

Carrolltonian Mr. Moors wrote in a 1929 letter to the editor of the Times-Picayune that women and children were "virtually barred from the park now by the rowdyism of football and baseball players." He believed that these "rowdies" came from all over the city, arriving in vegetable and ice wagons, and played sports while "scantily clad." He suggested adding more trees to prevent game playing and discussed the matter with the police. A 1936 article complained that rowdy youths broke lights and committed other acts of destruction in the park. The author was incredulous someone would damage the park: "A man may steal for food, and he may commit deeds of violence through rage or revenge, but despoiling a public playground can give no satisfaction to any person except one possessed of so distorted a brain that its owners were better locked up."

One notable exception to the ban on sports was croquet, perhaps viewed as a more refined activity by the wealthy white elites who controlled this allegedly public space. The sport became a regular event in the park in 1928. Charles Williams, an employee of the New Orleans Federal Bank, introduced croquet to the city and first tried playing at Audubon Park. He moved the sport to Palmer Park because there were fewer people and he hosted games every evening with other high-ranking bank officials. Williams argued:

“There is no other game to equal croquet. In the first place, it takes real brain work…Then there’s plenty of exercise in it, too: some people seem to think it’s a game for old men and women, but after you’ve played a few hours you have had as much movement as anyone could need… It doesn’t matter what else you do or your hobby is, if you start playing croquet you will drop all other sports and play nothing but that.”

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In 1940, the patient population was between 400 and 450 and a massive renovation was underway. The improved hospital created individual rooms for 450 patients and the 13” thick concrete walls made the buildings as fireproof as possible. Fire was always a concern.

Here’s a list of what was built in 1940:

• 17 two-story dormitories

• 20,000 square-foot recreation building with library, theater, canteen and ballroom

• Over two miles of two-story corridors that link all patient buildings together

• Facilities' engineering building

• Staff dining hall

• Residence for Daughters of Charity, a Catholic nursing order

All of these improvements cost around 4 million dollars.

To your right, the two-story buildings with the orange metal awnings are female patients’ dorms. The dormitories are arranged in two quadrangles connected via covered corridors. This provided patients, many in wheelchairs, access to all buildings. Creating a fireproof hospital was a major aim of the last renovation, so even the patients’ room furnishings were metal instead of wood.

Every dorm had 30 individual rooms--each with an oscillating fan and radiated heat for winter. Each floor had shared bathrooms and a common parlor. The original design provided men and women with separate dorms. Later on, when patient couples ran away and returned married, they developed a thriving “suburbia” of homemade cottages towards the rear of the facility so that they could live together.

A Carville “date” often involved a hot-plate in the woman’s room, a card table across the threshold with the man sitting in the hall. In the 1960s, one of the dormitories was remodeled into apartments to allow for the cohabitation of couples. Each apartment had a private kitchen and bathroom.

Dormitory #24 was designated the “Carville Mall,” where free enterprise thrived. A patient could open her own shop to provide goods or services to fellow patients.

Some popular patient-run businesses included a radio repair service, a barber shop, a bicycle repair shop, a beauty parlor, a photography shop, and even a dry cleaner's.

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On the evening of February 23, 1887, a crowd lined St. Charles Avenue to witness a procession of lanterns floating like a swarm of fireflies through the darkened street. First came the bandwagon, pulled along by four horses led by the famous acrobat and vaudeville theater magnate Signor Faranta. Behind that came seventy of those novel, wheeled machines (bicycles) that had appeared on the city streets just seven years before. Perched four feet from the ground on his high wheel bicycles came the costumed “Romeo,” and behind him Mephistopheles astride flapping wings of red.

Dressed as The Mikado, the Grand Marshall appeared on a tricycle illuminated by eighteen Chinese lanterns and covered by a twelve-foot Japanese umbrella, from which dangled fifty jewels. Nanki Poo and his friend rode together on a tandem tricycle, its large wheel woven with gold and silver sunfish, topped with a Chinese pagoda fourteen feet across, fifteen feet high, and graced with six dozen lanterns in crossing arches. Behind them came more in costume: a man dressed in black with the figure of a human skeleton outlined in white; a young man dressed as a ballerina; devils, jockeys, princes, harlequins; silk, velvet, and glitter all displayed in a procession on wheels.

This spectacle was the Carnival bicycle parade held on Ash Wednesday. The parade, organized by the New Orleans Bicycle Club and put on by cyclists from New Orleans and cities all over the South, intended to roll the Monday prior to Mardi Gras and the press billed the procession a central feature of that years’ Carnival celebrations. However, pouring rain on Lundi Gras forced the postponement. Despite the awkward date—normally a day of quiet sobriety—Rex and his queen watched from a balcony and applauded the luminous scene, as did the crowd along St. Charles Avenue. Almost every house was light up and many of the balconies decorated for the event.

Only seven years prior to this celebrated parade, bicycles were considered by the people of New Orleans an unwelcome intrusion: the riders considered undignified and the vehicles a menace that did not belong on the streets. 1887 was the year bicycle enthusiasts convinced New Orleanians otherwise.

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In the late nineteenth century, bicycles appeared on city streets, country roads, and race tracks. Cycle racing in New Orleans rose with a tide of interest in sports—recreational and spectator—among the middle class. In the summer of 1891, the Louisiana State Championship was held at the Fair Grounds race track. The young Benton "Babe" Cason, whose star had risen rapidly the previous year, challenged the established champion rider Charles B. Guillotte in the five mile Louisiana State Championship.

Guillotte, 28 years old, was a member of the New Orleans Bicycle Club (NOBC), formed by the first highwheel bicycle riders in the city in 1881. He was the long-standing champion rider of New Orleans. In 1884, he had defeated the American champion in the 3-mile race during the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition. In 1887, he defeated the state champion A.M. Hill in the great Thanksgiving Day Handicap, a race from downtown to the West End, a resort on Lake Pontchartrain. Since that year, he had held the State Championship.

“Babe” was ten years his junior and a member of the Louisiana Cycling Club (LCC), which had formed six years after the NOBC by younger members of that club who splintered off. While the League of American Wheelmen (LWW), and therefore the NOBC, did not allow members under 18, the LCC did not require LAW membership. “Babe” had been only seventeen when he won both the LCC championship and the Thanksgiving Day Handicap of 1890. Two weeks before his nineteenth birthday, he challenged the old champion.

They would ride ten laps on the half-mile, macadam track. Although the "safety" bicycle, the chain-driven model of today, had appeared a few years earlier as a more practical mode of transportation, serious racing cyclists still competed on the highwheel, or "pennyfarthing," also referred to as the "ordinary." This race was the capstone of a four-year rivalry between the NOBC and the “Progressive Young club,” the LCC. The first contest between the two teams had been staged in 1887 at the League meet. The young team, only two months old, was routed, losing every race. But four years later, they had mounted a serious challenge to the NOBC. At the 1891 League meet, the LCC had taken 23 of 27 prizes. Now their star rider was challenging the NOBC’s star in a special match for the championship.

Between $15,000 and $20,000 was reportedly wagered on the race (In today's dollars, that's between $400,000 and $500,000). The odds were 10 to 7 in favor of Guillotte. Because both riders were strictly amateurs, there was no money to win. But there was a medal at stake, described thusly by the Daily Picayune:

"a magnificent diamond medal . . . It is probably one of the finest medals ever rode for. The various parts are of gold of different colors. The top bar bears the word "champion," and is crowned by a victory head supported by cherubs. The main design is suspended from the bar by heavy chains, and are caught by the extended wings of an eagle perched upon bicycle wheels. From each wheel extends a spear headed staff, bearing a pennant and each pennant holds the name of one of the contestants, The rest of the design is a large wheel flanked by dragons, and in front of the wheel is a bicycle of gold, with moving wheels, surmounted by a rider in full costume."

For the first four and a half miles of the five mile race, Cason trailed Guillotte's small wheel. In the last lap, Cason pulled ahead, drawing steadily away to win by 100 yards. Cason did not have to walk to his quarters. He was carried. Guillotte lost gracefully, and he too was carried out by his friends.

The race was reported on a full page of the Picayune, in the breathless detail of a Suberbowl post-game, with two woodcuts, one a portrait of Cason. (See slideshow.) The next year, 1892, both clubs experienced membership declines and money woes. The two clubs merged into the Pelican Cycling Club for a short while before disbanding completely.

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In September of 1887, New Orleans cyclists held the 3rd annual meet of the League of American Wheelmen (LAW), Louisiana Division, at the Audubon Park Race Track. Originally a horse racing track, it was used for the new sport of bicycle racing. The races held there in March 1887 were the first ones held on a track in New Orleans. Although attendance at that race had been disappointing, interest in cycling--as sport, hobby, and transportation--rose steeply that summer.

The cycling scene in New Orleans began in 1881 with the forming of the New Orleans Bicycle Club (NOBC). In the summer of 1887, a new club, the Louisiana Cycling Club (LCC), was formed by a few members who had split off from the NOBC. The LAW meet at Audubon Park that September was the first contest between the rival clubs.

The event was one of the biggest of the year, with 3500 people filling the stands. The streetcar to Audubon Park ran on a special schedule leaving downtown every three minutes all day. Two-thirds of those in attendance were women. The freedom to attend amusements outside of the home was new for the bourgeois women of late-Victorian society, and they were crazy for spectator sports. The women came to the race track wearing airy summer dresses and ribbons in the colors of their favorite club--blue and white for the NOBC or purple and gold for the new LCC.

Down on the track, the unaccompanied men pressed against the fence and the riders themselves entreated each other repeatedly to turn around and "look that stand," which looked like a hillside covered in wildflowers. The ladies were reported to be not only clapping and waving their fans and handkerchiefs with abandon, but also betting their gloves and other articles on their favorites. The two champion riders of the NOBC, C.B. Guillotte and A.M. Hill, rode for the state championship. Hill, the cycling pioneer of New Orleans and founder of the NOBC, prevailed.

The LCC was routed soundly by their elders in 1887, but over the next few years the young club would mount a serious challenge to the old veterans of the NOBC, producing a new generation of young cycling stars.

League meets, Southern District meets, and other big cycling races would be held at the Audubon Park race track into the 1890s.

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In the 1880s, along with the rise of spectator and participatory sports, cycling races appeared in New Orleans. The city's first bicycle club, the New Orleans Bicycle Club, formed in 1881. All members belonged also to the League of American Wheelmen, the national organization formed in Boston in 1879, when the highwheel bicycle first appeared in the United States. These bicycles followed the "boneshaker" model, developed in the 1860s, and preceded the "safety." Both these models had two wheels of equal or near-equal sizes. The former used a pedal crank attached directly to the front hub. The latter used a chain crank attached to the back hub, the model that still dominates today.

The highwheel, however, had a very large front wheel, which allowed greater speed; trailed by a very small back wheel, the pedals attached to the front crank. Gear ratios had not been invented. The large size of the front wheel allowed for greater speed. The diminished size of the back wheel as compared to the front earned this model the nickname "pennyfarthing." It was these bicycles that cycling pioneers rode and raced in the 1880s.

The first races held in New Orleans were road races. But in 1887, the Louisiana Division of the League of American Wheelmen held a tournament at the Audubon Driving Park track--the first cycling races held on a track in New Orleans. The event was held as a benefit for Audubon Park. After two rain postponements, the tournament took place on March 3.

They had hoped the novelty of the sport would attract a large audience since interest in spectator sport was at a high in New Orleans and the race served to benefit the park. The turnout was disappointing. The Daily Picayune commented that the races should be held again. That Fall, the League held their 3rd Annual meet at the track. The affair was a grand one and very well attended, especially by ladies, who had become great fans of cycling races.

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The Audubon Driving Park Track was used in the late 1880s as a horse racing track. ("Driving" referred to horse riding.) Audubon Park, built in 1879, had been the site of the World's Industrial Cotton Centennial Exposition in 1884 and 1885. Starting in 1887, the arena hosted a new amusement for the people of New Orleans: bicycle racing.

In May of 1887, a tournament was the first bicycle racing event to be held on a track in New Orleans. Attendance for that race was disappointing. But the sport gained quickly in popularity that year. As the Daily Picayune reported:

“A bicycle contest has largely become the people’s choice, close upon if not rivaling the horse race. It is by no means strange that the bicycle race should so invariably attract the public, for a contest of these beautiful steeds, the will-o’-the-wisps of modern speed, is indeed one of if not the finest sights in American sports.”

The tournament held that fall was attended by around 3500 people, the majority of the spectators being women, to the pleasant surprise of the cyclers. Enthusiasm for the bicycle as spectator sport and pleasurable transportation rose over the next four years. Reports on the races took up more and more space in the newspapers. The bicycle races at Audubon park became grand affairs for the city’s bourgeoisie. Women were especially caught up in the racing fever, filling the majority of the stands and wagering personal articles on their favorites.

From 1887 to 1890, the Louisiana Division of the League of American Wheelmen held their annual tournament at the Audubon Park track. By 1891, however, the track had been abandoned, to the wistful regret of the cyclists.

“What sad thoughts are suggested to one who gazes on the ruins of the Audubon Driving Park track, that familiar place where four of the most successful race meets have been held, the wreck of the immense grand stand upon which thousands of the fairest daughters and interested mothers have gathered to witness their brothers and sons contesting for glory and fame on their winged wheels, at the meets of the Louisiana Division. All is gone, even the track itself can hardly be seen through the grass that covers it, and the wheelmen of New Orleans will have to look for other fields of contest, but the memory of this place, and the many pleasant occurrences therein will be fresh in the minds of the boys, and old men also for many years to come.”

In 1891, the League began holding tournaments at the Fair Grounds.

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In August of 1890, work was completed on the clubhouse of the Louisiana Cycling Club (LCC) at 1637 Octavia Street. The Queen Anne-style building still stands at that address. The party celebrating its opening was attended by 200 people and claimed to be the largest "smoker" (slang for a men's party) ever held in the South. Entertainments included acrobatics, musical performances, speeches, stories, and theatrics presented by members of the club, including the official LCC Quartette. For the next two years, during the height of cycling club culture in New Orleans, the building was the site of lively parties including "smokers" and ladies’ socials given for the numerous female fans of cycle racing.

The LCC was the first cycling club in the South to build its own clubhouse. At the time the house was built, the area was on the edge of the city’s suburban development along the St. Charles streetcar line. The building stood “on the woods side of Octavia Street.” The clubhouse included a ladies parlor, an octogon-shaped reading room, a billiard and banquet hall, a "wheelroom" for storing bicycles, and a janitor's quarters.

The LCC, formed in 1887, was the second bicycle club in New Orleans (not counting the short-lived Crescent Wheelmen formed earlier that year). The club was founded by R.G. Betts, who went on to become the first president of the Federation of American Motorcyclists, organized in 1903. When the clubhouse opened, the LCC had 78 members and 10 honorary members, including 7 women.

The first organization, the New Orleans Bicycle Club, had formed in 1881. When the NOBC began, all of the members rode highwheel bicycles, also called the “penny farthing,” a bicycle with a very large front wheel, with the pedal crank attached directly to the axle, and a very small back wheel. These bicycles were notoriously dangerous to ride, prone to tipping forward in a type of misfortune known as a “header.”

The “safety,” with two wheels of equal size and a chain-driven crank, appeared in the American market in 1887, encouraging more people, including women, to ride and to join the club. Many members of the LCC, however, continued to ride their high wheel bicycles, as they considered the danger part of the fun.

Founding members of the LCC had been members of the New Orleans Bicycle Club. The reason for the split is not clear, but differences in the culture of the two clubs point to possible reasons. While the NOBC had tried to present cycling as congenial to Victorian standards of propriety, the younger club was fun-loving and disorderly. They often made fun of the NOBC for being stuffy. The rivalry, despite the ribbing from the LCC, was a friendly one, expressed mainly in track and road races.

Like the NOBC, the LCC pushed for the rights of cyclists to public roads and the improvement of infrastructure, contributing money to the Canal Street Improvement Association and funding the purchase of a sweeper for St. Charles Avenue. The club also organized rides out to the resorts on Lake Pontchartrain, to the farms of Gentilly, and to seaside resorts in Mississippi, among other places.

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In 1892, the New Orleans Bicycle Club celebrated the opening of their new clubhouse in the Garden District, at the corner of General Taylor and Baronne. The plans were drafted by W.C. Williams and Brothers and the building was constructed by G.C. Lecorgue. The cornerstone is still visible, marked with the inscription: “New Orleans Bicycle Club; Organized 1880, Incorporated 1885. E.A. Shields President. Building Committee: H. Hodgson, Rene Gruenwald. Erected 1891. Architects, W.C. Williams & Bros; Builder, L.C. Lecorgue.”

The two-story building featured Greek architecture mixed with the Queen Anne style. The building included a room for storing bicycles, a billiard room, two bowling lanes, janitors’ quarters, a reading room, two parlors, meeting and committee rooms, and a ladies’ boudoir.

Founded in 1881 by jeweler A.M. Hill, the bicycle club was the first in New Orleans. Mayor Joseph Shakespeare gave an address commending the club for its crusade for road improvement, noting that it was through the “magic wand” of good roads that the Garden District came into being.

In 1886, three members of the New Orleans Bicycle Club made a historic cycling tour from New Orleans to Boston in 30 days. Throughout the 1880s and early 1890s, the club, along with the younger Louisiana Cycling Club, sponsored bicycle races that drew enthusiastic crowds. One of these races was the Thanksgiving Day road race of 1887. The seven-mile race from the corner of Canal and Claiborne to the West End was viewed by many from a train used as a moving grandstand.

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On a crisp Thanksgiving Day in 1887, a crowd gathered beneath the bare branches of the sycamore trees in the center of Canal Street. Bisected by multiple street railway beds and flanked by the lace-ironwork balconies of multi-story buildings, the broad boulevard's offices and shops were closed, and the street, usually choked with traffic on a Thursday, was traveled by only a few mule-drawn streetcars and omnibuses, the animals’ hooves clopping steadily on the blocks of pavement.

The chatter among the crowd gathered at the rail stop rang with words like “flyer,” “header,” and “scortch,” and with the names “Captain Hill” and “Guillotte.” Wagers were likely passed between them, the men for money and cigars, and the women for gloves and handkerchiefs. Soon their conversations were drowned out by the hiss and rumble of a steam engine, and the throngs streamed into the seven cars of the special train of the West End line of the New Orleans City Railroad.

All were going to the same place, the West End, one of the lakeside resorts to which the denizens of the city flocked on Sundays and holidays to find respite from the noise and filth of the city. The seven cars were packed with excited New Orleanians. The train pulled forward and a few blocks later, reaching Claiborne Avenue, stopped again at the “neutral ground,” the oak-shaded grass median that divided the avenue. A crowd had gathered there, too. Men, women, and children jostled elbow to elbow, standing on tip toes and craning necks to get a look at the road. The train passengers pressed against the windows at one side of the car, jockeying for view.

Assembled at the large intersection were fifteen gentlemen dressed in short pants and riding caps, each wearing a distinctly-colored arm band and standing beside his high-wheel bicycle. The train, functioning as a moving grand stand, would follow the cyclists as they dashed the five and a half miles up Canal Street and then along the New Basin Canal to Lake Pontchartrain. This was the Thanksgiving Day bicycle road race of 1887, and no one on the train had seen anything like it before.

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Early on Easter morning 1886, around a hundred people gathered at the Henry Clay Statue outside A. M. Hill Jewelers at St. Charles and Canal. Hill, captain of the New Orleans Bicycle Club, stood dressed in a riding outfit of brown corduroy and knee britches. Charlie Fairchild, Hill’s 23-year-old employee, arrived wearing his riding blue costume, including a flannel shirt, knee britches, and woolen stockings. He carried a pocketbook, a toothbrush, and a bottle of cologne, and from his shirt pocket dangled a watch and chain. Just before 6 o'clock, the appointed time of departure, Harry Fairfax, a nineteen-year-old reporter for his father's paper, The Daily Item, appeared, rolling his high wheel bicycle up Canal Street in the company of his parents and a party of young ladies.

These three members of the New Orleans Bicycle Club planned to ride from New Orleans to Boston, 1500 miles, in 30 days. Their destination was the national meet of the League of American Wheelmen. Other cyclists at that time were making long-distance tours across the United States and around the world. Thomas Stevens was simultaneously making his way through Asia that spring after having already cycled across North America and Europe. The three cyclists from New Orleans were the first to attempt a long-distance ride across the South. Roads were lacking and maps were non-existent, so the crew was forced to find its way as they went, often riding on railroad tracks.

The bicycles they rode were “penny farthings,” the high wheel bicycles of the 1880s. They had outfitted their machines, two Rudge Light Roadsters and a Columbia Roadster with the latest equipment. Strapped to the handlebars of each was a bundle of oiled cloth containing all they hoped they'd need for the next month: an extra suit of underwear, a pair of short pants, silk stockings and light shoes for the evenings, a rubber raincoat, an old bed sheet to be torn up for bandages and handkerchiefs, needles and thread, and toiletries including a toothbrush, a comb, a bottle of Pond’s Extract, and plenty of bandaging plaster.

Their tour proved arduous, as they met with record rainfall, boggy roads, flooded streams, and repeated injury. On the evening of May 24, 1886, they arrived in Boston with one day to spare.

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In 1881, the New Orleans Bicycle Club formed in a building at Commercial Street and St. Charles, inside the jewelry and pen shop of A. M. Hill.

A. M. Hill arrived in New Orleans at nineteen years old, following the end of the Civil War. He had been born in upstate New York and grew up mainly in Pennsylvania. He attended college in Pittsburgh, at the Iron City Commercial College, which, founded in 1851, was the first business school in the United States. He was only fifteen when he left Pennsylvania for Kentucky, where his brother gave him a position in his jewelry business. By nineteen, Hill sought to strike out on his own. When he arrived in New Orleans in 1869, he started a business making and selling gold pens. Over the next decade and a half, he built his pen and watch business at St. Charles and Commercial Alley, living in an apartment above his shop.

When the high wheel, or “penny farthing,” bicycle began to appear in the United States, Hill was an early adopter, riding his first in 1879. That same year, Hill escaped a large fire that destroyed his St. Charles Street business and his upstairs apartment.

Hill was an active participant in amateur athletics. A member of the Young Men’s Gymnastic Club, he joined the Amateur Regatta in 1879. He was generous as well. His many donations included “plated ware” for a Christmas dinner at an orphanage in 1880 and a valuable trophy for a sharpshooting competition in 1882.

The first meeting of the New Orleans Bicycle Club was held on April 30, 1881, at Hill’s Commercial Street business. There were twenty members, and Hill was elected captain. Thenceforth, Hill was referred to in the papers as “Captain” Hill, even after he was no longer the captain of the club. His fortunes were looking up, as he was elected to membership in the Produce Exchange, an influential businessmen’s group. One year later, he purchased the jewelry store of E. A. Tyler at St. Charles and Canal Street; Hill would eventually turn it into one of the most successful jewelry businesses in the South.

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Newcomb administrators and faculty members were rather unique in their ideas about the physical education of women, especially when compared to other schools at the time. Dixon hired Clara Baer to meet the challenge of winning over students and their parents to ideas linking health and exercise. She also had to deal with the cumbersome long skirts the girls were forced to wear. In 1894, she made the daring insistence that girls wear bloomers as the standard uniform during athletic activities.

Clara Baer not only was imaginative when it came to uniforms, but also when it came to the sorts of activities the students participated it. Besides inventing "basquette," a less intense version of men's basketball, she also came up with Newcomb Ball, a sport similar to volleyball, which soon spread to other colleges.

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In 1908, Pelican Park opened on South Carrollton Avenue, situated between Palmyra and Banks Streets. In 1915, sections of the stadium were dismantled and moved by mules to the corner of Tulane and Carrollton Avenues, where Heinemann Park opened.

The park was named after A.J. Heinemann, stadium owner and Pelicans shareholder who moved the team to their new stadium. On January 8, 1930, Heinemann shot himself in the head at the park after suffering great losses during the stock market crash. In 1938, Heinemann Park was renamed Pelican Stadium.

The stadium was home to New Orleans' first professional team, the Pelicans, from 1915 through 1957. 11,000 fans turned out for the first night game played in Pelican Stadium in 1936. The last game played in Pelican Stadium occurred on Sunday, September 1, 1957, before a sparse crowd of 941 who saw the Pelicans defeated by the Memphis Chicks.

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In 1923, a new gymnasium was built on campus, along with an annex that housed a swimming pool, thanks to the assistance of Mr. Irby. Besides a new gymnasium and pool, tennis courts and an athletic field were also built between 1923 and 1929, as well as corresponding walks and driveways.

Through the efforts of Physical Education instructor, Clara Baer, on both the Broadway and Washington Avenue campuses, the physical health of Newcomb's students was maintained. Besides inventing Newcomb Ball, Ms. Baer fought to allow girls to wear bloomers and stockings instead of full skirts, but it took until 1935 for students to be allowed to wear more comfortable gym clothing.

The swimming pool was opened in 1924, also through a donation by William Irby, and wasn't only used for swim classes. The Newcomb synchronized swim team, the Barracudas, dominated the waters with their complex performances. Unfortunately, the synchronized swimming program ended at Newcomb when coach Alicia Crew left the university, and eventually, the swimming test graduation requirement was lifted, both in the late 1970s. Neither left without making a positive impression about exercise to the undergraduates that participated.

Woodward Way, which was named after Ellsworth Woodward, a former art professor at Newcomb, was the passage that linked the art school and the gym, but because the gym is now part of the art building, the pool is the sculpture studio, and a sculpture garden is located in this area. Due to renovations in the 1990s, Woodward Way is now more of an enclosed hallway that connects the wings of the building.

To continue the walking tour, please proceed to the Art Building, campus building number 83.

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During WWII, Camp Leroy Johnson was used along with the New Orleans Airport by the Army and Airforce Bomber Squadron for training. Signal and Quartermaster units were trained on the post, which housed a Transportation Corps Officer Candidate School and a Replacement Training Center.

Originally the New Orleans Navy Air Base, the camp was renamed after World War II Medal of Honor recipient Leroy Johnson. He was a native of Caney Creek, Louisiana and served as a Sergeant, U.S. Army. He died on December 15, 1944, near Limon, Leyte, Philippine Islands, shortly after he threw himself on two enemy grenades to save two comrades. In 1947, the base was named Camp Leroy Johnson in his honor.

The camp was part of the lakefront for twenty-two years. In July 1964, a sunset ceremony marked its close, during which the flag was lowered for the last time. Shortly after its close, the University of New Orleans leased the base as a sports complex for its Division I Athletic program.

In 1987, Pope John Paul visited the UNO Lakefront Arena during his visit to the United States. The archdiocese constructed an altar especially for the Pope, only used during his visit. After the outdoor mass, the archdiocese donated the altar structure to the University of New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, the structure received considerable damage and was torn down in 2008.

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