The office of Mayor of Baton Rouge, Louisiana was formally created in 1818 as the chief executive of the City of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which has been the state capital of Louisiana continuously since 1849 (except for a brief time during and after the Civil War when Opelousas, Shreveport, or New Orleans held that title). Baton Rouge's current chief executive is Sid Edwards.
Background
Baton Rouge was granted the right to incorporate as a town in 1817 under legislation approved by Louisiana's second governor, Jacques Villeré. The city was chartered the following year and led by a magistrate who was chosen among the popularly-elected, five-member board of selectmen. Selectmen were up for election annually.
Early mayors also served only one-year terms. The office had a two-year term in the 1880s and was increased to four years in duration in 1898.
The first mayoral election under "city" status was in 1846 between James Cooper (who had previously served as a magistrate) and John Dufrocq, a Whig Party member who won the balloting. In 1856 another noteworthy race occurred, this time between Know Nothing mayor Joseph Monget and his Democratic challenger, Edward Cousinard; after actually tying in the popular vote, the commissioners of election decided to award the election to the incumbent. Cousinard later won the mayor's seat himself in the 1857 election.
The city's government essentially ceased to exist for the duration of the Civil War, once the Battle of Baton Rouge had commenced in 1862. In 1863, the victorious Union Army subsequently divided the Baton Rouge area into districts and sub-districts that were administered by "commanders"—in this case, military officials who had basically been temporarily rotated out of a combat zone and given administrative duties in the local military occupation area for several weeks or months at a time as a brief respite before returning to the battlefield. With such short-term assignments, some of these commanders reportedly made much more of a favorable impression on the locals for their efforts to govern and to assist with the rebuilding of the city than others did.
Later, after the return to civilian rule, the city government was also largely stripped of influence at one point by the First Reconstruction Act, which was issued in 1867 and caused it to miss an entire election cycle in the process.
Multiple mayoral elections during the Reconstruction Era were disputed. After the 1871 election Gov. Henry Clay Warmoth did what he legally could from the temporary capitol in New Orleans to briefly prop up the new African American Republican mayor, Loyeau Berhel —who was facing an overwhelmingly Democratic-controlled board of selectmen—but by the next year Warmoth himself was facing a mounting impeachment effort and forced to broaden what remained of his support by reaching out to Democrats who had a much more solid base in Louisiana than the Republicans did; he declared the similarly disputed election results for the next term in 1872 null and void, and awarded the state's commission to the Democratic candidate. Ultimately, that 1872–73 term essentially ended up with two separately-functioning city governments, one recognized primarily by African American and pro-Union white Republicans (including so-called "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags") and one recognized primarily by native white Democrats. Although the term "city council" had been used on occasion before, the board of selectmen really seems to have begun transitioning over to the use of the term under the Republican mayor that year, perhaps in anticipation of needing to differentiate it from the competing board of selectmen that the Democrats were in the process of setting up (the board finally formally adopted the title "city council" in 1874). The Republicans had shown improvements in their organizational efforts (and electoral strength in general) by being able to initially win the 1872 election without Warmoth's help—and then by holding a share of the government for the duration of that term. While the Democratic mayor, James Essex Elam, had been willing to fight to hang on to his seat after the disputed votes of 1871 and 1872, he either determined that he had no chance at the ballot box in the 1873 annual municipal elections or he simply no longer felt up to the challenge any more (he did, in fact, die only several months after the scheduled election date). Shortly before the election was to be held, African American state senator J. Henri Burch, a prominent area Republican, met with Elam, and they negotiated a compromise where Elam would resign his position and support new governor William Pitt Kellogg's appointment of the Republican incumbent to the mayor's seat—along with three Republicans and three Democrats to the city council (as selected by a conference committee). This compromise was largely acceptable to both sides (very rare for Reconstruction)—although even then a group describing itself as Fusionists (Liberal Republican Party members and a rogue faction of Democrats who had vowed to support John McEnery's sinking claim to the governorship to the bitter end) attempted to hold the canceled municipal elections any way (which apparently failed to draw many to the polls and quickly faded away). After making it through 1873 relatively peacefully, Kellogg also reappointed the mayor in 1874. The Republicans did finally win a municipal election in their own right in 1875, but in 1876 the Democrats were able to use various forms of intimidation, including by former members of the old Knights of the White Camelia, to regain the mayor's seat for the first of 28 consecutive Democratic chief executives.
In 1914 the city began using a city commission government under then-mayor Alex Grouchy, Jr. (it had already been in the works before the sudden death of Mayor Jules Roux the year before). In 1949 the governments of the city and the Parish of East Baton Rouge were largely consolidated under then-mayor S. Powers Higginbotham, and in 1982 they were fully merged into a single governing body (similar to a consolidated city-county, although the municipalities of Baker, Central, St. George, and Zachary remain self-governing). At that time, the title of "mayor" changed to "mayor-president," being that they were now both mayor of Baton Rouge and president of East Baton Rouge Parish. Indeed, four recent mayor-presidents resided in Baker, Central, or Zachary at the time of their elections, giving them the distinction of serving as mayor of Baton Rouge without actually living there; no candidate from the newly-incorporated City of St. George has been elected mayor-president yet, however.
Elam held office for the most terms, ten one-year terms (including four consecutive at one point, between 1865 and 1869). While no families have dominated the office over the years, Baton Rouge's longest-serving mayor—Wade Bynum (24 years over two different periods of time)—did replace his brother Turner Bynum after he died in office, and Mary Webb was later appointed by the city council to complete the term of her late husband, Jesse Webb, Jr. Despite these rare family connections, Baton Rouge's mayors have still tended to share commonalities in the sense that most were white male Democrats. However, the last five mayor-presidents have included multiple Republicans and African Americans, as well as a woman. In fact, the current mayor-president, Edwards, is a Republican.
List of magistrates, mayors, commanders, and mayor-presidents Below is a list of Baton Rouge's chief executives—magistrates from 1818 to 1846, mayors from 1846 to 1863 and again from 1865 to 1949, (Union Army district and sub-district) commanders from 1863 to 1865, and mayor-presidents from 1949 to present. The town magistrate was an appointive office, determined from among the elected five-member board of selectmen. All city mayors and city-parish mayor-presidents were otherwise popularly elected, unless specified below.
Nº Image Chief Executive Term start Term end Party Note(s) Magistrates—Town of Baton Rouge 1 William Williams 1818 1820 also served from 1821-1822 2 François "Palo" Gardere 1820 1821 born in Kingdom of France 3 William Williams 1821 1822 also served from 1818-1820 4 William Wykoff 1822 1823 5 Jason Candee 1823 1824 6 Bartholomew Beauregard 1824 1828 7 William Grivet 1828 1829 8 William R. Willis 1829 1832 also served from 1833-1834 9 John Reid 1832 1833 also served from 1845-1846 10 William R. Willis 1833 1834 also served from 1829-1832 11 P. A. Walker 1834 1835 12 Raphael Legendre 1835 1836 also served from 1836-1838 13 Stephen Henderson 1836 1836 resigned 14 Raphael Legendre 1836 1838 also served from 1835-1836 15 William Gil 1838 1839 16 James Cooper 1839 1843 also served from 1844-1845 17 Abel Waddill 1843 1844 18 James Cooper 1844 1845 also served from 1839-1843 19 John Reid 1845 1846 also served from 1832-1833 Mayors—City of Baton Rouge 20 John R. Dufrocq 1846 1855 Whig born in British Lower Canada; 1854: re-elected unopposed 21 Joseph Monget 1855 1857 Know Nothing 1856: appointed, by commissioners of election, due to election resulting in a tie vote of 223–223 22 Edward Cousinard 1857 1859 Democratic 23 James Essex Elam 1859 1862 Democratic also served from 1865-1869, from 1870-1871, from 1871-1872, and from 1872-1873 (served more terms than any other mayor, 10) 24 Benjamin Franklin Bryan 1862 1862 Democratic resigned, due to Battle of Baton Rouge; also served from 1888-1890 and from 1894-1896 25 Jordan Holt 1862 1863 Democratic 1862: appointed, by board of selectmen; also served in 1865 and in 1872 Commanders—District of Baton Rouge 26 Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cooke 1863 1864 27 Brig. Gen. Henry Warner Birge 1864 1864 28 Brig. Gen. William Plummer Benton 1864 1864 also served later in 1864 29 Brig. Gen. Fitz Henry Warren 1864 1864 30 Brig. Gen. William Plummer Benton 1864 1864 also served earlier in 1864 Commanders—Sub-District of Baton Rouge 31 Col. William J. Landram 1864 1864 32 Brig. Gen. Joseph Bailey 1864 1865 Commanders—District of Baton Rouge 32continued Brig. Gen. Joseph Bailey 1865 1865 33 Brig. Gen. Edmund J. Davis 1865 1865 34 Col. John Giles Fonda 1865 1865 also served later in 1865 35 Bvt. Maj. Gen. Michael Kelly Lawler 1865 1865 born in British Ireland 36 Bvt. Brig. Gen. John Giles Fonda 1865 1865 also served earlier in 1865 Mayors—City of Baton Rouge 37 Jordan Holt 1865 1865 Democratic acting mayor; appointed, by Gov. J. Madison Wells; resigned, to serve in Louisiana House of Representatives; also served from 1862-1863 and in 1872 38 James Essex Elam 1865 1869 Democratic 1865: appointed, by Wells; 1867: election canceled, due to order by Gen. Philip Sheridan; in accordance with the implementation of the First Reconstruction Act also served from 1859-1862, from 1870-1871, from 1871-1872, and from 1872-1873 (served more terms than any other mayor, 10) 39 Oliver P. Skolfield 1869 1870 Democratic 40 James Essex Elam 1870 1871 Democratic also served from 1859-1862, from 1865-1869, from 1871-1872, and from 1872-1873 (served more terms than any other mayor, 10) 41 Loyeau Berhel 1871 1871 Republican certified elected, by Democratic-controlled commissioners of election; commissioned to assume office, by Gov. Henry Clay Warmoth but was eventually removed after charges of voting irregularities upheld by Democratic-controlled electoral investigative committee; first African American mayor; first Republican mayor 42 James Essex Elam 1871 1872 Democratic 1871: retroactively declared elected by Democratic-controlled electoral investigative committee; also served from 1859-1862, from 1865-1869, from 1870-1871, and from 1872-1873 (served more terms than any other mayor, 10)