Tulane Stadium --- Gone

June 15, 1980

On November 2, 1979, Tulane President Sheldon Hackney announced that Tulane Stadium would be demolished. The demolition started on November 18, 1979.  In the spring of 1979, Tulane Curator of Art Bill Cullison found two 3000 year-old Egyptian mummies in their wooden sarcophagi under the bleachers.

Cullison had been looking for them. To his knowledge, they had been given to the school (then named University of Louisiana) in 1852 by Egyptologist Doctor Joseph Gliddon who had ceremoniously unveiled them to an audience at the Mechanics Institute near Common and Dryades streets.  He had found a 1938 City Guide which described them as a "young man and a young woman".  Cullison said that they had been on display in Tulane's old Natural History Museum in Gibson Hall unitl it was dismantled in 1959 and replaced with classrooms. Cullison knew that they were stored in a vault in the stadium but did not know their exact location.  He found a metal structure under the bleachers and suspected it might contain the mummies. He had more trouble trying to find the key to open it than he did actually locating the vault.  When he stepped inside, he found glass cases through which he first saw the hair and fingernails of the deceased couple.  The cases were put on display in the Special Collections Division of the Howard Tilton Library.  "Tulane's Tuts", an apt description by Dixie Roto writer Elise Martinez in a March 18, 1979 article about them, were moved to the medical school and put under cold storage.

A search of old newspaper articles reveals that Gliddon was a bit of showman who, during the 1850s, took his mummies around the country to display them to the general public.  In Boston in January 1850 he had an "officiating carpenter" saw a sycamore box in half, lenghwise, to reveal a female mummy to a large audience.  In September 1850 he was a subject a a media blitz when he mistook his male mummy for a female.  In 1851 he was in Philadelphia,  hawking and displaying the ancient Egyptians.  In January 1852, claiming to be a former U.S. Consul to Cairo, he advertised a series of 12 lectures, beginning on March 2, 1852,  to be held in New Orleans at Lyceum Hall sponsored by the Committees of the Board of School Directors at which he would discuss and display his mummies and, on February 27, he would unwrap one of them before the audience.  Tickets for one gentleman accompanied by two ladies could be had for $8.00, which allowed admittance to all 12 lectures (a season ticket, of sorts). For $5.00 one person could attend all lectures.  The unwrapping required an additional 50 cents from season ticket holders or $1.00 from the general public.  The handbill on the right advertises Gliddon's Philadelphia show.

On the day of the unwrapping, Gliddon advertised his mummies as "Adam and Eve" but at the actual ceremony he claimed not to know their gender, race, or age. The unwrapping was done under the supervision of New Orleans faculty members of the Medical Department of the University of Louisiana.  The actual unrolling was principally done by doctors Jones, Wedderburn, and Chilto who took 45 minutes to accomplish their task.  The mummy turned out to be female "in a beautiful state of preservation".  Gliddon then announced that at his next lecture he would divulge secrets learned after studying the swathing and inscriptions found on a piece of papyrus found within the folds of the linen.  At his last New Orleans lecture, on March 3, 1852, faculty members of the university read letters revealing the results of their examinations of the remains and Gliddon announced that he would turn two mummies over to the school's Museum of Medicine which, in 1880 was located on Common Street between Baronne and Dryades streets.

A later account of Gliddon's mummies tell us that he actually gave them to Josiah Nott, a University of Louisiana anatomical professor.  They remained in the medical school's anatomical library until 1894 when they were moved (with the school) to the uptown campus and placed in the Museum of Natural History on the third floor of Gibson Hall.  In 1927 there were at the Mid American Research Institute in Didwiddie Hall.  They moved back to Gibson hall in 1930 and from 1955 to 1978 they were placed in a dark, non-climate controlled room under the stadium's bleachers.  In 1982 they moved to the basement of the Howard-Tilton library and more recenlty back to Diwiddie Hall in a special darkened room where they were studied by anthropologist John Verano.  

The Prytania Streetcar Line was serviced almost exclusively by the "Prytanias," a luxurious class of electric cars just as distinctive as the elegant "Garden District" neighborhood. Fifty cars were ordered on April 21, 1910 from the St. Louisi Car Company.  The exteriors were painted yellow and orange and their numbers ran from 355 to 404.  Mahogany interiors surrounded patrons seated in St. Louis rattan seats. They looked out of Robertson windows that slid conveniently into side panels when open. The "Prytania" cars were designed for double-end operation and the prepayment of fares, the first of its type in New Orleans. 

The 800 model cars replaced the Prytanias on September 16, 1923.  The Prytanias were then shifted to lighter traffic routes.  A public's changing preference for private transportation made streetcar operation unprofitable.  According to a New Orleans Public Service Inc. newspaper announcement, the Prytania Streetcar Line discontinued operations on October 1, 1932 and the Nashville Bus Line began service over a part of the territory formerly served by the line. Prytania Street, itself, was not included.  Remaining Prytanias were scrapped that same year.  The Prytania streetcar barn was located on Prytania Street between Robert, Pitt, and Upperline.  After the city acquired the property, a 1936 ordinance dedicated it for "public purposes".  The location is now a shopping center, fronting Prytania, with a CVC pharmacy (4901 Prytania) as its anchor.  Main Source: http://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/540#.Ukfi9X9dy8A