MARDI GRAS..

America's first Mardi Gras
The explorers eventually found the mouth of the Mississippi River on March 3, 1699, Mardi Gras of that year.They made camp a few miles upriver, named the spot Point d'Mardi Gras and partook in a spontaneous party. This is often referred to as North America's first Mardi Gras.A couple of decades later, Bienville founded New Orleans and soon Carnival celebrations were an annual event highlighted by lavish balls and masked spectacles. Some were small, private parties with select guest lists, while others were raucous, public affairs.Collectively, they reflected such a propensity for frolic in the local citizenry that historian Robert Tallant wrote in his book "Mardi Gras" that "natives would step over a corpse on the way to a ball or the opera and think nothing of it."Parades officially began in 1838.On Ash Wednesday of that year, The Commercial Bulletin read: "The European custom of celebrating the last day of the Carnival by a procession of masqued figures through the streets was introduced here yesterday."Over the next 20 years, Carnival became an increasingly rowdy event defined by drunkenness and violence. Eventually, churches and even the press began to call for its demise.In 1857, Mardi Gras found itself on the verge of death.

The birth of the krewe
Then along came Comus, which actually started 27 years earlier in the wee hours of Jan. 1, 1830 when a group of young men walking home after a New Year's Eve celebration in Mobile, Ala., passed a store featuring an outdoor display of rakes, hoes and cowbells. Making the kind of decision inebriated young men are apt to, they picked up the supplies and headed to the mayor's house where they caused a stir. An obviously patient man, the mayor sobered them up and, according to historian Buddy Stall, made the motley krewe's leader an offer.
"Next year," hizzoner suggested, "why not organize yourselves and let everybody have fun?"
Led by Michael Kraft, the group called themselves the Cowbellion de Rakin Society, paraded the following New Year's Eve, and was so successful that the procession became an annual event.
Now, jump ahead to 1857 when New Orleans city leaders were on the verge of canceling Mardi Gras for good. Six Cowbellions now living in the Big Easy proposed forming a new private club to present a parade based on a theme, with floats, costumed riders and flambeaux (torch carriers who lit the way) an orderly alternative to the chaos that Carnival had become. They chose the name Comus after the Greek god of revelry and coined the "krewe" appellation.
City leaders agreed and Comus was credited with saving Mardi Gras.