CUTLINE: Photo courtesy of the Louisiana State Museum The Cabildo was once home to the Louisiana State Supreme Court and is now used by the Louisiana State Museum. Hey Blake, I recently found a bottle with Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works on it. It also has ""E. Barq, Prop." on it. I was wondering if you may know if this bottle has any value. It was found under my grandmother's old house in Biloxi, Miss. Kathy Davis Dear Kathy, There are bottle collectors all over the world, and your bottle is worth exactly what someone will pay for it.
The maker of your bottle, Edward Charles Edmond Barq, was born in New Orleans in 1871. As a small boy, Barq was taken to France by his mother, and it was there that he learned the art of flavor chemistry. He returned to New Orleans in 1890 and opened the Barq Brothers' Bottling Company with his brother Gaston. He founded the Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works when he moved to Biloxi after he married. In 1898, he bottled and sold his first bottle of Barq's, a sort of root beer and sarsaparilla mixed into one. If you go to 224 Keller Ave. in Biloxi, you will be able to see the building where this Southern original was created.
Your bottle could be more than 100 years old. Barq's early bottles were embossed with the name of the company " Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works " as well as 'E. Barq, Prop." and 'Biloxi, Miss." I've seen Barq's bottles and other 'Barquiana" on eBay. Hey Blake, I have a few questions concerning the enclosed photograph and the State Legislature when it met in New Orleans. The writing at the bottom of the photo indicates that it is the ""Jackson Monument and Old Capitol." Did this building, known as ""The Cabildo," serve as the state Capitol until the Legislature returned to Baton Rouge in 1882? Do you know when the Legislature first moved to New Orleans? Is this building still in existence? Richard Gibson Dear Richard, I guess you don't live in New Orleans, because if you did, you would know that the Cabildo on Jackson Square is very much still in existence; however, it never served as the state Capitol building.
The Cabildo in your photo was constructed between 1795 and 1799 and was the seat of the Spanish government. The 'Illustrious Cabildo" or city council was the name given to the governing body that met there. And it was on the second floor of this building, in the Sala Capitular, where the Louisiana Purchase was signed in 1803.
While the Spanish were still in charge, the Sala Capitular functioned as a courtroom. During the territorial period (1803 to 1812), it served the same purpose. Later the Sala Capitular became home to the Louisiana State Supreme Court, which met there from 1868 to 1910. In 1892, the Louisiana Supreme Court heard a case that would eventually go on to become a landmark decision for the United States Supreme Court: Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld 1890 legislation requiring separate railroad cars for African Americans and whites, and thus established the doctrine of 'separate but equal." That doctrine was overturned by the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954.
In 1911, the Cabildo became the home of the Louisiana State Museum.
New Orleans was the first capital of Louisiana after it became a state in 1812. Legislators decided to move to Donaldsonville in 1830 and built a new capitol, but it leaked. They grew bored and quickly returned to New Orleans.
Voters statewide continued to be dissatisfied, and the legislature of 1846 moved the capital to Baton Rouge. From 1849 until the Civil War, Baton Rouge was the capital of Louisiana. The Confederate state government met at Opelousas and then at Shreveport. New Orleans became the capital again in 1864, but the constitutional convention that drafted the Louisiana Constitution of 1879 returned the capital to Baton Rouge where it has been since 1882.
When the capital was New Orleans, the legislature met in a variety of places including a hotel, a convent, a theater and a hospital.
