BATON ROUGE (AP) — Historians are unsure exactly when and where French explorer Pierre Le Moyne saw the tall cypress pole smeared with animal blood that he described on a map as “le bâton rouge.” But they do know that on March 24, 1699, Le Moyne — better known as the sieur d’Iberville — turned off the Mississippi River and onto what would later be called Bayou Manchac, which is now Louisiana’s second historic waterway. State Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham made the designation official last weekend. Iberville’s trip was significant not just for the “growth and establishment of Louisiana, but also to that of the nation,” he said.————Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]