Tracy Wolff's Guilty Little Pleasure

I’m a trivia nerd. Seriously, I’m a freak when it comes to useless—and useful—bits of knowledge. Trivial Pursuit is more than just a game to me, it’s a lifestyle and my husband laughs every time a new subject comes up and I spout off with some weird, obscure fact that almost nobody knows—nobody, anyway, but me and my oldest son, who is following in his mom’s footsteps.
I bring this up now because the flip side of the coin is that I love to research. I love, love, love to immerse myself in a new place or a new occupation or a new way of life and find out everything about it. Thank God my career as writer allows me to do just that, every time I pick a new setting or create a new character.
So, as I was writing my brand new erotic suspense, Tease Me, I immersed myself in the culture and history of New Orleans. Now, I lived in New Orleans for four years so I knew a fair bit about the city to begin with, but as I wrote Tease Me I learned a whole lot more. So, with no further ado, here are the top ten weird and wacky facts I learned about New Orleans while writing Tease Me.

10. Despite The Big Easy’s disturbingly high murder rate for much of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, there has only been one serial killer in its long and varied history: The Axeman of New Orleans, who terrorized the city for most of 1918 and part of 1919.
Southern Comfort whiskey was originally known as Cuff and Tails.
When Andrew Jackson and his men came to N’Awlins, they cleaned out the canals (which were filthy) and did away with malaria for nearly five years.
7. New Orleans hosted the first opera in North America—at the end of the 18th century.
6. Louisiana’s maximum security prison, Angola, hosts one of the largest Rodeo’s in the country every year. People come from all over the country to see it.
5. The architecture in the French Quarter is Spanish (I already knew that, but I think it’s cool).
4. The first president of LSU went to jail for embezzling from the university. They still have his picture hanging up—in his prison uniform.
3. In Louisiana, biting someone with your natural teeth is considered a simple assault, but biting someone with your false teeth is considered an aggravated assault.
2. The airport code for New Orleans, MSY, is so noted because long before there was an airport there it was a plantation, where a pilot named John Moisant crashed his plane in the late 1800s and died. The area was later named Moisant Stock Yards after him and the name has stuck, even after it was turned into an international airport.
1. The famous bar, Pat O’Brien’s, was originally a speakeasy during Prohibition. Its most famous drink, the Hurricane, was invented to get rid of a surplus of rum during World War II.

So, lay it on me—what weird trivia facts do you know? Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy Tease Me! Winners will be chosen from comments made yesterday, today and tomorrow J Have a great Tuesday!