Historic Buildings

The Aillet HouseFrontview of Aillet House

Explore the Aillet House (c.1830), an important preservation-in-progress that represents Louisiana’s earliest French Creole architectural tradition.

Allendale Plantation Cabins

Discover history spanning over 100 years from before the Civil War up until the Civil Rights era in the three cabins from Allendale Plantation.

The legacy of slavery is interpreted in the 1850 slave cabin. The interior of the cabin shows early furnishings used typically by slaves before the Civil War. The second cabin from Allendale Plantation from the 1870s depicts life for the plantation worker after the Civil War. The third cabin from Allendale from the 1890s shows life as it would have been during the Civil Rights era. 

Frontview of Arbroth Store

Arbroth Plantation Store

Built in the 1880s, this plantation store was in use as a grocery store and post office until it was closed in the 1980s.

Juke Joint

Juke joints have a history that is deeply rooted in small towns throughout the south. West Baton Rouge was famous for the juke joints that provided relief to the workers coming in from the sugarcane fields and long hard days of work on the Mississippi River. You could hear live music playing all night through open windows across the canebrake.

Front of Juke Joint
Front of Reed House

Reed Shotgun House

Built in 1938, this shotgun house design is a staple of southern architecture and here you learn about the cultural influence migrant workers had on West Baton Rouge.