50th Annual Conference

Doullut Steamboat House Doullut Steamboat House

Conference Hotels

The New Orleans Conference will use four smaller hotels on one of New Orleans famous streets – St. Charles Ave., where you will find the oldest streetcar line in the city. The hotels we are using are all on the streetcar line as well as Tulane University – where the paper sessions will be located. Three of the hotels we will be using are very close to each other and the fourth is the closest to Tulane. The next conference update will give you information about each hotel and how to make your reservations. The hotels are: The Columns Hotel, The Hampton Inn, The Best Western/St. Charles Inn. The Park View Historic Hotel The Columns is two blocks from the Hampton Inn, and the Best Western Hotel. If you are driving to New Orleans, you should consider reservations at the Hampton or Best Western as they have parking lots. The Columns only has street parking. As mentioned previously, the Park View is close to Tulane with limited parking.

Conference Events

The conference will begin Wednesday, September 26th with the board meeting either at the Columns Hotel or the Hampton Inn.

On Thursday, September 27th we will have a bus tour of several sections of New Orleans. Other on-your-own-tours will be made available if needed. The bus tour will start by going into the Bayou St. John area with a tour of the Pitot House. In close proximity is our next stop – St. Louis #3 Cemetery. Then we will head to the Lakefront Airport to tour one of New Orleans finest Art Deco buildings. After lunch at the airport, we will go to the Chalmette National Battlefield. From the battlefield we will head to the neighborhood called Holy Cross to tour some of the newer type houses built post Hurricane Katrina. We will also make a quick stop at the Doullut Steamboat Houses built in the early 1900s. These two steamboat houses are the only ones in New Orleans. Lastly on the way back to ‘Uptown’ New Orleans, we will stop at one of the old Public Markets – St. Roch for refreshments.

Doullut Steamboat House Above-ground tombs at a New Orleans cemetery

We will have our opening reception Thursday evening at St. Alphonsus, one of three Roman Catholic Churches that were located in the neighborhood called The Irish Channel. Notre Dame de Bon Secours was damaged by a hurricane in the 1920s and had to be destroyed. St. Mary’s Assumption (across the street from St. Alphonsus) is still an active Catholic Church, but St. Alphonsus was deconsecrated and is used as a museum and center for cultural functions.

On Friday, our paper sessions will be held at Tulane University. We will stay at Tulane University all day as the Awards Ceremony and Banquet will be held in the same area as the paper sessions.

Saturday will be the all-day bus tour to at least three plantations along the Mississippi River – one on the east bank and the others on the west bank of the river.

More details to follow!