On Laura, a sugarcane plantation built in 1805, stand 12 buildings on the National Register. Seven tours focus on Creole Louisiana and are based on 5,000 pages of French documents plua Laura's Memories of My Old Plantation Home, in which Laura Locoul dramatically details 250 years of the true life stories of French-speaking owners, women, slaves & children.

 

What English speakers know today as the "Tales of Br' er Rabbit" came to Louisiana from the West Africa 276 years ago and were first recorded in this site's remaining slave cabins some 125 years ago. The 60-minute guided tours are given in English or French. Gift shop (free catalog) offers original Br' er Rabbit Tales, Laura Memoirs and Creole plantation decorative arts.

 

2247 Hwy. 18, Vacherie (225)265-7690

 

 

This plantation is unique among plantation mansions in the state because of it's splendid avenue of trees. Ben Se' jour (Good Rest) is Greek revival type architecture surrounded by 28 Doric columns and double galleries, is 70 feet square, built of plastered brick and painted a soft creamy pink.

The famed Oak Alley, a double row of 250 year old live oaks, 14 on each side, leads to the River Road some 300 yards distant. Trees range from 15 to 22 feet in circumference, and their branches have long since interlaced, forming a leafy canopy from the road to the house. Spacing between the trees is exactly 80 feet. Nowhere in the Mississippi Valley is there such a spectacular setting.

The mansion was built by hand with slave labor in a seven year period from 1832 to 1839. Jacques Telephone Roman, a wealthy French sugar planter, built Bon Se' jour for his new bride. Later the name was changed because of the interest in the trees of Oak Alley. This beautiful National Historic Landmark is on the West Bank, 5 1/2 miles above the Veterans Memorial Bridge on the Great River Road. A nominal entrance fee is charged.

 

3645 Hwy. 18, Vacherie, (225)265-2151 or (800)-44ALLEY (800-442-5539)

 

Take a walk through time as you enjoy a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the many interesting people who have called this plantation, "home." You may even be guided around by one of the family members themselves.

Owned by William Priestly, son of the discoverer of oxygen. Birthplace of his grandson, H.H. Richardson, one of the most important American Architects of the 19th century.

Later purchased by Dr. Cazamie Mericq from Paris. He cared for the ill, from the plantation masters and their families to the vast number of slaves that inhabited the surrounding plantation.

Using her wedding dowry from her father Valcour Aime, the Louis the XIV of Louisiana, Josephine and her husband Alexis Ferry acquired the plantation in 1858. They immediately enclosed the bottom floor doubling its size to the present day 12,000 sq. ft.

Sold at a sheriff's sale after the Civil War, and purchased by Joseph Waguespack in 1877, his descendants have kept this working sugarcane plantation a vital part of the landscape of the Mighty Mississippi River.

View and exhibit from the old plantation commissary where items need for every day life were purchased.

See examples of items, both domestic and farming, necessary for early life on the plantation.

Learn about the sugarcane industry in South Louisiana from its beginnings in 1795, through the Golden Years before the Civil War, when sugar was considered White Gold, to the present day modern industry, still playing a very important, vital roll in the economy of South Louisiana.