Turkish Bazaars on Main Street, grand steamboats chugging down the Mississippi River—you’ve never seen Baton Rouge like this before.
Andrew David Lytle, a well-respected commercial photographer, captured Baton Rouge like no other. Originally from Ohio, Lytle spent 60 years in Baton Rouge and produced thousands of photographs. In fact, the photos taken by Lytle Studio provide one of the only visual accounts depicting life in Baton Rouge in the 19th century.
Editor Mark E. Martin’s new book, Andrew D. Lytle’s Baton Rouge: Photographs, 1863-1910, published by LSU Press, offers readers a chance to see Baton Rouge through Lytle’s lens. Unfortunately, many of Lytle’s glass-plate negatives are gone forever, shattered by his heirs who reportedly threw them down a dry well, unaware of what they were destroying. This amazing volume preserves approximately 120 of the remaining images.