Baton Rouge will turn 200 years old in 2017, and to commemorate the event the city-parish will kick off a yearlong bicentennial celebration that will begin when the Red Stick drops at midnight at The Crest Stage in downtown Baton Rouge on New Year’s Eve.
“We endured a civil war, organized America’s first bus boycott against segregation back in the ’50s, and boomed with the petrochemical industry in the ’70s,” Mayor Kip Holden says in a news release.
Baton Rouge was incorporated as a city in 1817 and became Louisiana’s capital in 1846.
“Along the way, we became a boomtown in our own right, landing new jobs and corporate facilities in technology, television and film production, digital arts and many other sectors,” Holden says.
The mayor and others gathered today for a press conference in Town Square in downtown Baton Rouge to unveil the bicentennial plans.
Earlier this year, the mayor appointed a bicentennial committee, with honorary co-chairs Andre Moreau and actress Lynn Whitfield, to plan ways to recognize and celebrate the Capital City’s history.
The committee represents a broad base of organizations throughout Baton Rouge that have been working to incorporate the bicentennial into programming in 2017.
Visit Baton Rouge will incorporate the city’s bicentennial into its 2017 marketing materials. The East Baton Rouge Parish Library System is working with local arts, cultural and educational organizations to document the bicentennial celebration.
Get more information about the city’s plans to celebrate its 200th birthday and find out about upcoming bicentennial events.
