Rural Life Museum

The main exhibits in the museum, both in the visitor center and on the grounds, center around life on sugar plantations in the 19th century. Excellent exhibits in the visitor center describe the lives of owners, overseers, and the slaves who were forced to work long and hard hours to grow, tend, and process the cane into sugar. The buildings on the grounds positioned to form an example of a working plantation, include the overseers house, rows of slave cabins, outbuildings, and a sugar house.

        

The museum also has an assorted collection of tools, toys, household items, carriages including several hearses, and usual cast iron caskets. Buildings on the grounds are grouped together to represent an Arcadian settlement and life on pioneer farms.

There's also a statue of an elderly black man that stood in the center of Natchitoches, Louisiana until 1968 when it was removed because of its racist depiction of a "good darkie" avoiding eye contact as he tips his hat. For years the original plaque was covered with a wooden box but that has been removed and a sign erected to explain the reason for the statue in the first place and the reasons it was removed and why it now stands on the museum grounds.

The visitor center is accessible. The buildings on the grounds do not have ramps. It's possible to peek in the doors of some of the slave cabins. The ground is rough grass and difficult to push through without assistance.

To get to the museum follow the directions on the website as your GPS may lead you astray. The parking lot is large enough for any RV. The accessible spots are not long enough for RVs but park as close as possible to avoid the rough gravel of the parking lot. Museum  30.41193, -91.11633