Cancel anytime. What started as a party among friends at a Soulard rowhouse apartment in 1979 has since grown into what many say is America’s second-largest Mardi Gras celebration — behind New ...

Early on in its decades-long run as a weekly magazine, LIFE turned its eye toward always-enticing, ever-vivid New Orleans and that great city’s signature annual event: Mardi Gras. In February ...