A resin figure of former Louisiana governor-turned-U.S. senator Huey P. Long looks almost like an apparition next to Louisiana’s Old State Capitol’s exhibit of the hospital bed in which Long died on Sept. 10, 1935. The bed is on loan from the Louisiana State Museum, which has had the piece in its collection since 2010.
The hospital bed in Louisiana’s Old State Capitol seems too narrow to accommodate someone as powerful as Huey P. Long.
Then again, some people may see it as a metaphor for how, circumstances aside, everyone born into this world eventually will leave it. Usually, the end is more ordinary than extraordinary.
And this seems to have been the case for Long, who died not on the marble floor of the State Capitol but on the thin mattress of the bed that’s now on display.
The sight of it gave Logan Smith pause.
“I saw the bed on a recent visit, and it struck me how this was a small ending for someone who was bigger than life,” the Pollock reader said. “But it also made me think about who had the foresight to save this bed in 1935 and how it came to the Old State Capitol.”
A looped video chronicling Louisiana governor-turned-U.S. senator Huey P. Long’s final days and his funeral plays above the Louisiana’s Old State Capitol’s exhibit of the hospital bed in which Long died on Sept. 10, 1935. The bed is on loan from the Louisiana State Museum, which has had the piece in its collection since 2010.
The bed is on loan from the Louisiana State Museum, which has had the artifact in its permanent collection since 2010.
It originally stood in Room 314 of Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium, which was located behind the State Capitol and where Long died on Sept. 10, 1935. That building was demolished after the hospital, now called Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, moved to its current Essen Lane location in 1978.
The bed was moved into the Old State Capitol two years ago.
According to the Louisiana State Museum’s records, the pillow and sheets now covering the bed in which Huey P. Long died are not original to the piece. The bed has been in the State Museum’s collection since 2010 and is on loan to Louisiana’s Old State Capitol through the end of 2027.
The pistol as the main attraction
Long was shot on Sept. 8, 1935, in front of what once was the Governor’s Office in the back hallway behind the Louisiana State Capitol’s first floor elevator bank. Baton Rouge physician Carl Weiss is said to have been the assassin.
Meanwhile, authors and historians still argue whether the bullet that took Long’s life was fired from Weiss’ .32 caliber semi-automatic pistol or those fired by Long’s bodyguards.
Either way, Weiss did face off with Long in the hallway. It’s said the doctor wanted to confront the former governor about the redesign of the judicial district of his father-in-law, Judge Benjamin Henry Pavy.
Weiss’ pistol once was the main attraction in an octagonal room within the permanent Long exhibit at Louisiana’s Old State Capitol. It was displayed in a thick glass case on the backdrop projections of old newspaper reports floating to a soundtrack medley of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” and Castro Carazo’s “Every Man a King.”
The night table that stood beside the bed in which Huey P. Long died also is on display at Louisiana’s Old State Capitol. Long died on Sept. 10, 1935, in Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium, which stood behind the Louisiana State Capitol. The bed and night table are on loan from the Louisiana State Museum’s collection.
Carazo was Long’s handpicked director for the LSU Tiger Marching Band. He not only composed Long’s campaign song but also the university’s fight songs.
And Barber’s piece? It was the same composition played at the funeral of President John F. Kennedy, whose life also was cut short by an assassin’s bullet.
Bed takes center stage
No music is piped into the room where the bed now takes center stage. Cases containing the gun, bullets removed from Long’s body, along with a watch belonging to one of Long’s bodyguards, also were moved into this new space two years ago.
The bed was part of the sparsely furnished hospital room in which Long spent the final days of his life in 1935.
Huey P. Long died in this hospital bed in room 314 at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital on Sept. 10, 1935. The hospital stood behind the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where, it’s said, Long was shot by Dr. Carl Weiss on Sept. 8, 1935. Authors and historians still argue whether the bullet that ultimately took Long’s life was fired by Weiss or Long’s bodyguards. Nevertheless, this bed is on display, along with Weiss’ gun and the bullets removed from Long’s body, in Louisiana’s Old State Capitol. The bed is on loan from the Louisiana State Museum. Staff video by Robin Miller
“The hospital room was kind of a suite,” said Anne Mahoney, curator for Louisiana’s Old State Capitol. “But Huey Long stayed in up to three rooms when he was taken to the hospital. There was the room he was brought into before the operation, then the operating room. Then he was brought into Room 314.”
The exhibit also includes other items connected to Long’s hospital stay.
“We have some objects identified as being from Huey Long’s hospital room, but it’s not specified from which of the rooms he was in,” Mahoney said. “The display includes the bed, the mattress, the pillow and sheets with Our Lady of the Lake’s logo and the nightstand that was by the bed.”
The objects are on loan to the Old State Capitol through 2027, but they have the option to renew the loan.
Levers that raised and lowered the hospital bed in which Huey P. Long died are located at the foot board. The iron bed was only 36-inches wide. Long died in Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium’s Room 314 on Sept. 10, 1935. The bed is on exhibit at Louisiana’s Old State Capitol. It is on loan from the Louisiana State Museum.
State Museum’s research
Louisiana State Museum historian Joyce Miller dug into the records documenting the bed’s journey from Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium and its new home on Essen before finally landing in the museum’s permanent collection.
Those records suggest that some parts of this hospital room exhibit were not located in Long’s room.
“After Huey P. Long was shot in the Louisiana State Capitol on September 8, 1935, he was taken to Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium, where he died two days later,” the museum records state. “Following his death, the hospital salvaged the furniture purportedly used in Long’s hospital room: a bed, mattress, chest of drawers, stool, and nightstand. (The hospital) also donated a pillow and sheets, though these are unlikely to be original to the bed.”
Though the pillow and sheets are original to the hospital, they weren’t necessarily the linens that covered the bed when Long was there.
A look at the hardware beneath the bed in which Huey P. Long died. The hardware raised and lowered the bed by way of levers at the foot. The iron bed was located in room 314 of Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium. It is part of the Louisiana State Museum’s collection and is on loan to Louisiana’s Old State Capitol.
The records state that the furnishings were kept in the original facility downtown, but when the hospital relocated to Essen Lane, they moved Long’s hospital furniture with them.
The Louisiana State Museum donation was recommended by Sister Judith Ann Couturie, who was a board member for what is now Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and the hospital’s archivist.
“The artifacts were accessioned (by the museum) in 2010,” the records state.
Though the hospital room’s dresser and stool are part of this collection, they’re not included in the Old State Capitol’s exhibit. The bed alone is enough.
It represents a part of the story rarely seen in previous exhibits — Long’s mortality in his last hours, something even power couldn’t conquer.
