Photo of The Day 527

High Heels on Cobblestones, Louisiana

Photograph by Edwin L. Wisherd

This month in Photo of the Day: Images From the National Geographic Archive

Because the region around New Orleans is composed of alluvial soil, there is no paving material close at hand. More than a hundred years ago the city offered a bounty to ships which would bring to the port rock ballast instead of sand. The first cobblestone pavement was laid on Gravier and Magazine Streets in 1817.

From the National Geographic vintage collection.

Photo of the Day 331

French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2000

Photograph by Bob Sacha

Shot in infrared, New Orleans' French Quarter seems bathed in blue early one morning. The oldest neighborhood in the city, the quarter is a national historic landmark and a popular tourist destination.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Spirits of New Orleans," October 2000, National Geographic Traveler magazine)

Photo of the day 219

Boatyard at Sunset, Yscloskey, Louisiana, 2001

Photograph by Medford Taylor

A mauve sunset blankets a boatyard in Yscloskey, Louisiana, in 2001. This and nearly all the other fishing hamlets in the marshlands of St. Bernard Parish southeast of New Orleans were flattened in the summer of 2005 by Hurricane Katrina's 20-foot (6-meter) storm surge. Years later, the region's fisheries and oil and gas industries are still rebuilding.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "ZIP USA: Delacroix, Louisiana," July 2001, National Geographic magazine)

Photo of the Day 33

Girl with Pumpkin, Louisiana, 2004

Photograph by Ken Kochey

In New Orleans, a young girl in a Halloween dress struggles to lift a large pumpkin. The tradition of carving pumpkins during Halloween began in the United Kingdom, where for centuries people cut scary faces into potatoes, turnips, and even large beets to dissuade evil spirits from entering their homes. Early European immigrants to America made these so-called jack-o'-lanterns from pumpkins, which are indigenous to North America and make an ideal canvas for such carved art.