W.O.W.! Has it been three years already?

It was only supposed to be four rides. I didn’t plan on creating an entire thing. But the thing has been did, and three whole years have gone by as fast as those guys who wear the spandex and the clip-clop shoes. 

I’ve learned more over the last three years than I can possibly imagine. It’s hard for me to believe it’s only been that short amount of time - seems longer. When I decided to tell the first story, I didn’t know I would be embarking on a knowledge journey that has taken me to greater depths of understanding. 

How do we know so little about our history? Wow! I suppose that’s just the way of things. 

When I first started telling stories, I used the buildings as my inspiration. I picked a location and set out to see what I could find out in the newspaper archive and from other sources. During my research, I would stumble upon other little facts of inspiration. 

Many of the rides ended in a cemetery, for obvious reasons. Over time, the cemetery began serving as the point of inspiration. Such was the case for James William Nicolson. 

If the name sounds familiar, then you probably have been on LSU’s campus. He’s a former president of the university and well-known mathematician. He invented the trigonometric circle, a fact which is engraved on his headstone. 

Sometimes it’s not the name that grabs attention, but rather the style of the headstone that is worth noting. In the same cemetery where Nicolson is buried you’ll find dozens of headstones that look like a tree stump. And on each one there’s an engraving for Woodmen of the World. 

I know what you’re thinking, but no, this is not some massive representation of folks from the logging industry. The real reason is marketing. 

Woodmen of the World is a fraternal benefit society that was founded on June 3, 1980 by Joseph Cullen Root, in Omaha, Nebraska. Its focus was, and still is, life insurance. 

The founder was Joseph Cullen Root and his original idea was to make life insurance available to everyone. Well, almost everyone. Of course this was during the years of segregation, so this was only available to white males over the age of 18. 

RELATED: More than you really want to know about the history of the organization

But this organization wasn’t all for the dead. Rather, there were many social events connected to the organization In in Baton Rouge its headquarters was downtown on Sixth Street. Today. That building is occupied by the restaurant Cocha, a discovery made by John Kelton during one of his restaurant tours.  

Based on the newspaper articles in the Advocate, the W.O.W. was popular. You could make the same conclusion based on the visuals in the cemetery. Why did so many people get the company’s logo added to their headstone? 

Until about 1935, the organization had a little marketing campaign. If you allowed the logo to be engraved on your headstone, they would give you an extra $100 payment in addition to the insurance amount. When you account for inflation, that was an extra $3,000. Basically, they paid for the headstone. 

The practice stopped when the cost of headstones went up, or so the story goes. The organization was doing very well for itself, and as I mentioned before, is still in operation to this day. 

So now you have another piece of history to add to the mental timeline in your mind. It would seem this once temporary ride will continue rolling every week, so come join us every Monday at the Electric Depot. I promise, you’ll either learn something new or have some fun, and on many occasions, you’ll get both. No promises.