Hey Blake,
I might be wrong, but I believe that no street in New Orleans has been named after a mayor who served during Reconstruction. Am I wrong?
BM Weber

Dear BM,
I must tell you that you are mistaken. We have three streets that are named in honor of Reconstruction mayors: Flanders Street and Wiltz Lane in Algiers, and Leeds Street in eastern New Orleans.

Between the years of 1865 and 1877, those generally accepted as the Reconstruction period in the South, there were 12 different mayors of New Orleans. Some were appointed, and some were elected. Some served as acting mayors, with one serving in this capacity for only three days in March 1866.

Benjamin Franklin Flanders was appointed mayor of the City of New Orleans in April 1870 by Gov. Warmoth. When his first term ended in November, in accordance with the new charter, he was re-elected for a second term that ended in November 1872. It was during his tenure that the upper City Park -- now known as Audubon Park -- was purchased by an act of the Legislature for $800,000.

However, before Flanders was mayor, he was also governor. In June 1867, he was appointed military governor of Louisiana by Gen. Philip Sheridan, but he resigned the position after only six months.

Louis Alfred Wiltz was mayor from November 1872 to November 1874. He was elected at age 29, the youngest mayor in the history of New Orleans. He had enlisted in the Confederate Army before he was 18, and he later served not only as mayor, but also as speaker of the state Legislature, lieutenant governor, president of the constitutional convention of 1879, and governor of Louisiana from 1880-81. Wiltz died in office from pulmonary consumption at the age of 38.

Charles J. Leeds, a man of means and position, followed Wiltz as mayor, and his term lasted from November 1874 to December 1876. During his administration some progress was made in improving drainage, extending street railways and building roads.

Hey Blake,
Can you please give me some data on Mr. Sol Stolaroff, who served as head of United China and Glass Company? Uncle Sollie was my grandmother's brother and was honored by the Japanese government.
Steve Potash

Dear Steve,
Your Uncle Sollie was an important man here in New Orleans, and his death on Oct. 1, 1967 at age 67 made the front page of The Times-Picayune.

Solomon A. Stolaroff was born in El Paso, Texas. After he moved to New Orleans, he eventually became president of United China and Glass Company, making many trips to the Far East before World War II in connection with the business.

In 1947, he went to Japan at the invitation of the United States Department of Commerce. There he signed the first purchase agreement with the Supreme Command Allied Powers and the Japanese Board of Trade, reestablishing trade between Japan and the United States.

He was summoned to Washington, D.C., in 1962, the year he retired as president of the company, to receive a citation from the Japanese ambassador for his part in the development of the ceramic industry in Japan. And in Tokyo in 1964, he received the Japanese Emperor's Order of the Rising Sun, first grade of the fourth class, from Japan's international trade and industry minister.

Hey Blake,
Can you tell me how Chippewa Street was named? The Chippewa Indians' territory is around Minnesota in the upper Mississippi River area, so why are they being honored down here? Can you shed light on this for us?
Michael Godzinski

Dear Michael,
Although the Chippewas didn't live here, they, along with 15 other American Indians, are honored by streets in New Orleans. However, only tribes that lived east of a line roughly along the Texas-Louisiana border are represented here: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Chippewa, Choctaw, Colapissa, Iroquois, Mobile, Oneida, Osage, Seminole, Taensa (Tensas), Tchoupitoulas and Tunica. Also, four streets honor famous Native Americans: Hiawatha, Pocahontas, Powhatan and Tecumseh.

Originally living in the forest country around Lake Superior, the Chippewa form one of the largest tribal groups of American Indians in North America. Their customs are described in The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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• Reconstruction-era New Orleans -- as depicted in Edgar Degas' Portraits in an Office: The Cotton Exchange, New Orleans -- came under the leadership of 12 mayors.