Celebrating the Indomitable Spirit of New Orleans

Despite a long history of hardships, New Orleans still knows how to have a good time.

With its unofficial motto being “Let the good times roll,” New Orleans has long been known as a place to party. Mardi Gras — marked by parades and unrestrained revelry each year on the Tuesday before the start of Lent — was declared a legal state holiday by Louisiana back in 1875.

But tragedy has been a part of the city’s fabric as well. Even before Hurricane Katrina killed some 1,800 people in 2005, New Orleans’ below-sea-level location and subtropical climate subjected its early residents to devastating diseases. According to the Louisiana State Museum, more than 12,000 people died of yellow fever in New Orleans in 1853; and with even more deaths in rural south Louisiana, the state had the single highest annual death rate of any U.S. state during the entire 19th century. Some say it’s the hardships that the residents of New Orleans have faced that make them determined to celebrate life with such exuberance whenever they can.

This year, just nine days after hosting the celebrations surrounding the Super Bowl, the annual American football championship game, on February 3, New Orleans will host another round of celebrations for Mardi Gras on February 12. Even with the work of surviving hardships and being a good host, this city founded by the French can say: Laissez les bons temps rouler!