Huey Long's Tomb — State Capitol Gardens

He was 42 when they shot him in the building he built. Huey Long was assassinated in the State Capitol on September 8, 1935, by Dr. Carl Weiss, who was gunned down moments later by state police acting as Long's bodyguards. Weiss's alleged motive: his father-in-law, Judge Benjamin Pavy, was going to be gerrymandered out of office. Long lingered two days at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital before he died. On September 13 he was interred on the capitol grounds, in front of the building itself.

Roughly 100,000 people came to pay their respects when the body lay in state — some traveling from Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas.

The tomb sits in the sunken garden at the center of the south park, 600 feet square, where the walks cross. A marble pedestal rises to a 12-foot bronze figure of Long in a business suit, the whole monument standing 30 feet. Charles Keck designed it. His first marker was a simple tombstone; in 1938 the State Legislature appropriated $50,000 to replace it, and two years later this went up. Long had arranged his own burial site. The garden was dedicated in 1940, five years after the killing.

The statue faces the capitol. That's not incidental — it faces the building where he was shot. This is the tower Long secured funding for, insisted on designing as a skyscraper, and pushed to completion in little over a year. By using funds he controlled to start the work, he kept the legislature from stopping it. At 450 feet, it remains the tallest capitol in the United States, and the man buried out front is the reason it stands.

The grounds hold live oaks over 200 years old, azaleas, camellias, magnolias. The tomb is free, and it's the first thing you see coming up on the building. Long in front, Long's tower behind — the order he arranged.