Royalty aboard El Infinito

War, imaginary and real, was on his mind when King Gabriel visited south Louisiana in 1939. Just a few months before the year’s Mardi Gras celebration, Orson Welles had panicked half the nation with his radio broadcast of a fictional invasion from outer space. In real life, war clouds hovering around Adolph Hitler were becoming more and more frightening.
By 1939, a fanciful tale had developed around Gabriel and Evangeline, Acadiana’s best known Carnival king and queen. They lived in a place called Sargasso on the lost continent of Atlantis when they were not celebrating with their south Louisiana subjects, and traveled here in regal fashion each spring.
King Gabriel VI (Lafayette car dealer Dan Olivier), took his cue from Welles’s radio drama and sent ahead “Alcibiades, Minister Plenipotentiary from the Kingdom of Sargasso,” to announce through the press that his majesty would make the trip from his island kingdom by spaceship.
This was at a time when space travel was just an idea discussed by scientists and science fiction writers, but according to newspaper accounts, “The monster aircraft designed for interplanetary travel . . . [had] ample accommodations for the King’s court and his Dishonor Guard of Atlantians.” Details about the spaceship named El Infinito were closely guarded, but it was “reliably reported that it has a cruising range approaching the infinite and a speed surpassing that of light.”
The proclamation claimed the spacecraft landing in New Jersey that was the basis of Welles’s radio show was really a trial run by El Infinito that “caused rumors of an invasion from the Planet Mars.” The Martian invaders were in fact “a party of Atlantians . . . on a sight-seeing tour of the countryside.” King Gabriel did not apologize for the terror caused by the broadcast but made certain that for Mardi Gras his Dishonor Guards would be “costumed in uniforms . . . more likely to occasion amusement than terror.”
A few days before Mardi Gras King Gabriel announced through the press that before zooming to south Louisiana El Infinito would spend several days over the Caribbean Sea while King Gabriel reviewed war games by the U.S. Navy. The naval exercises were real; Hitler’s intentions in Europe and Japan’s plans in the Pacific made U.S. admirals jittery.
A report from aboard El Infinito described in patriotic language “the vast spectacle of the might of the United States navy maneuvering mock warfare” as King Gabriel looked on.
“As El Infinito hovered over ships of the battle fleet or darted hundreds of miles with speed greater than that of light, cheers could be heard from the decks of the battle wagons, swift destroyers, and tiny pig boats [a nickname for submarines] of the U.S. Navy as crews viewed with astonishment the performance of this monster of the skies. Bombers and pursuit planes dipped wings in salute to King Gabriel and his Court.”
Alas, the sailors on maneuvers and the unfortunates terrified by Martians landing in New Jersey were apparently the only ones privileged to see El Infinito in all its glory.
On Lundi Gras, the Monday before the big day, Gabriel’s loyal subjects were told that the landing place in south Louisiana would not be disclosed “because of the secrecy surrounding the details of construction of this monster aircraft.
El Infinito reportedly landed somewhere near the Southern Pacific railroad line and the King of Carnival and His Court journeyed to Lafayette aboard a much slower “Royal Train.” He arrived just in time for a parade dedicated to Queen Evangeline VI (Rose Mary Doucet) and for a regal ball at the Lafayette High School gymnasium.
El Infinito had a short lifespan. There is no mention of the spacecraft as King Gabriel VII (A.M. Bujard) made his way from Sargasso for the 1940 celebration. He arrived in Lafayette “aboard his royal train . . . decorated in the Carnival colors of gold and blue [sic] and purple . . . drawn by a Southern Pacific locomotive decorated with streamers and flags” and was greeted by Queen Evangeline VII (Dorothy Daly).
Gabriel VIII (Frank Hampton Davis Sr.) and Evangeline VIII (Anna Belle Bernard) presided over the 1941 celebration, but there would be no revelry for the next six years, after the war games witnessed from aboard El Infinito turned into the reality of World War II.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.