West Baton Rouge Museum

Just west of Louisiana’s capital city, Port Allen’s West Baton Rouge Museum tells the story of rural, pre-Civil War era plantation life. Permanent exhibits showcase early French Creole architecture and the cultivation of sugar throughout history. Outbuildings include three pre-Civil War era slave cabins. 

Specific structures onsite include the Aillet House, a French Creole home built circa 1830; 1850s slave cabins from Allendale Plantation; the Reed Shotgun House, built in 1938; a sugar mill from 1904; and the Arbroth Plantation Store, an 1880s structure that remained a grocery store until the 1980s. 

The museum has a permanent exhibit of artifacts pertaining to 300 years of history in West Baton Rouge Parish, and it hosts traveling exhibits and special events.