A Mule Fit for a King

Remembering when mules pulled the Mardi Gras parades

by

On a brisk November day in 1918, a little brown mule named Lady idled in front of Fabacher’s Rathskeller restaurant on St. Charles Avenue. While her human coworker scraped and moved coal from the wagon to the kitchen, a cacophony of whistles and cheers erupted through the streets. It sounded like Mardi Gras, but this celebration was different: The Armistice was signed! The Great War is over! In a moment of clarity, the young man dropped his shovel, put on his jacket, looked at Lady, and said, “So long, my dear. I don’t think I’ll ever see you again.” As he recalled in his autobiography, “And I cut out, leaving mule, cart, load of coal and everything connected with it. I haven’t seen them since.”

It would hardly be Louis Armstrong’s last interaction with a mule. 

Following the Armistice, Armstrong went on to cultivate a remarkable music career and redefined jazz across the globe. We know that story. Many might also know about Armstrong’s reign as the King of Zulu on March 1, 1949, in a mule-drawn float. And some, a select few, tell of the calamity that ensued near the end of his reign that day. At the intersection of N. Prieur and Orleans, amidst a throng of gaiety and excitement over the city’s native son, his dishonorable steed made the executive decision to cross the neutral ground. The long-eared miscreant held little regard for the float, the king, nor the royal court in his tow. The float’s chassis (undercarriage) fell apart on the neutral ground. Though there were no reported injuries, the parade’s revelers stripped the vessel for souvenirs as a limousine whisked the king away. It took thirty years, but Satchmo had finally had his reckoning with a mule. In 1950, Zulu used tractors. 

There are many theories as to why Armstrong’s mule might have abandoned its task that day, but it most likely simply recognized that a heap of oats and hay awaited at one of the Department of Public Works barns, located just three blocks away. Most parade mules worked double shifts—garbage routes by day and the glamour circuit by night—the mule probably decided it was time to kick off its shoes and go home. 

At the turn-of-the-century, the City of New Orleans was utilizing a huge envoy of mules for various tasks. Though mules generally had less to haul than they did prior to the rise of the automobile and the combustible engine, the city’s bureaucratic half-asses stubbornly remained employed through the 1950s. For 364 days of the year, these mules spent their days toting police wagons, cleaning filthy streets, collecting garbage, and pulling massive bales of heavy cotton through the city on flatbed cotton drays known as “float wagons.” These vessels are the basis of today’s parade floats. 

[Read this: Bring forth the fiery, untamed steeds: The lost mule market district of New Orleans]

Within years of New Orleans’ very first Mardi Gras parades, krewes such as Rex and Comus began using privately contracted mule-drawn drays. For that one night a year, mules toted the ornate displays of mobile architecture constructed of paper, satin, paste, glitz, and gam—joining their biped revelers in grandeur. Before the parades, stablemen took the time to thoroughly bathe and groom the mules, quite a luxury for the nineteenth-century machine. Like the royal court’s horses, parade mules wore caparisons—though they were usually plain, white sheets. The ‘garbage mules’ may not have been invited to the balls, but it was they who conveyed Fat Tuesday’s processions and cleaned Ash Wednesday’s streets.

In 1939, the Department of Public Works owned over 350 mules for road repair and toting refuse, allowing bigger, better, and more Mardi Gras parades for the rental fee of $1.50 per mule per parade. Krewes could not construct floats larger than 24x9 feet, with a maximum height of 18 feet. The larger the float, the larger the team of mules required to pull. Each mule was handpicked by the Public Works superintendent to ensure safety and limit liability. To everyone’s surprise, that year he selected a thirteen-year-old blind mule named Queen Bess to pull krewe royalty, so long as she was led by the only human she trusted, a sixty-three-year-old man named George Mengel. Together, Mengel and Bess humbly plodded fifty miles in four days; the New Orleans Item reckoned, “you know there ought to be a heaven for Bess, and she ought not to go to the place where mules are usually told to go.”

Like Queen Bess, most mules conducted the procession gracefully and even with enthusiasm. One stockman swore to the Times-Picayune in 1937, “You bet those mules enjoy a Carnival parade … When you see the parade swing down the street you will see the good-natured old mule point his ears forward, or good-naturedly flop them backwards and forward as he bobs his head in rhythm with his step.”

From time to time, the garbage mules exhibited episodes of whimsy and mischief during Carnival, though none so dramatic as the year King Louis reigned. On occasion a mule might rush to the float ahead of them to munch on the decorative garland and paper. Native New Orleanians recall how their grandparents watched the creatures of habit break from the parade to continue on their usual garbage route. Perhaps the most common mishap was the striking mule, who stopped mid-parade and refused to budge another step, all too aware that they’d worked beyond their shift and that it was time to retire to the stables for the night. 

By the mid-twentieth century, as sanitation procedures and equipment advanced, the Department of Public Works began phasing out its mules. By 1951, only ninety sanitation mules remained, and the city made it clear to the Times-Picayune that “garbage collection by the familiar mule-drawn wagons will have gone the way of the mule-drawn streetcars.” Thus, the mule-drawn parades would go the way of the streetcars, too. The garbage mules received happy and well-deserved retirements or gained new postings with the Department of Parks and Parkways. Mardi Gras krewes, including the Krewe of Carrollton and Rex, bought some of the garbage wagons for additional floats. But the transition was final—by 1950, tractors and jeeps pulled floats for most Carnival parades.

As with other victims of progress, the Orleans Item in 1950 expressed their pity for the mule, “Edged out, that’s what. Pushed around by some brass jeeps. Cheated out of jobs by a bunch of mechanical packers! Bah!” The Times-Picayune penned the year before they would “miss those hooded, smelly, and balky pullers of parades” and that “King Mule” had a glorious reign. 

Charlotte Jones is a New Orleans buggy driver and history practitioner recently sent out to pasture at the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House in LaPlace. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Louisiana State University. 

Dos and Don'ts for Equine-Drawn Parades 

DO respect the mule and their human; both are working hard trying to keep everyone safe while having fun. You can best respect the mule by turning off your camera flash, giving it space, and keeping things like plastic bags, confetti, poppers, and noise-makers at home.

DO NOT try to pick up throws near the mule’s hoofs or the parade float, and NEVER throw beads near a mule.

DO NOT attempt to intercept the mule while they’re working. This includes running up to or in front of them, petting them, or waving in their face.

DO NOT give them any treats; some mules have dietary restrictions, and handlers/drivers often have the appropriate treats for them.

DO offer help in the very rare case that a mule is startled or spooked. Help keep the crowd back while their handler sorts it out and never approach the animal unless their handler explicitly asks for assistance.

DO tell the mules (and their humans) that they’re doing a great job!