Hours
Monday: Closed
Tuesday-Saturday: 10:00am-4:30pm
Sunday: 2:00pm-5:00pm
How sweet it is. The West Baton Rouge Museum is the only museum in the nation that features the history of sugar agriculture from slavery times through the Civil Rights era. The historic structures at the Museum illustrate life on a sugar plantation from the antebellum period (1830-1860) through Reconstruction (1870-1880) to the Civil Rights Era in the 1960's all set on the same plantatin, Allendale. The four-acre campus includes five historic structures - the Aillet House, ca. 1830, a French Creole cottage that illustrates a small sugar planter's home; the Allendale slave dwelling, ca. 1850; the Allendale Cabin, ca. 1870, a dwelling for the newly freed slaves; and the Allendale Plantation Cabin, ca. 1960, a one-room Acadian style made of old cypress. The slave cabin housed slaves of Henry Watkins Allen, the last Confederate governor of Louisiana and the man for whom Port Allen was named. Each of the historic structures contain furnishings and utensils of that time period, and museum guides describe life in sugar country. The Museum itself, located within the parish's Old Greek Revival style courthouse, features south Louisiana history and art exhibitions. One highlight of the Museum is a 1904 22-foot working sugar mill model that shows the process of sugar production from sugar cane to raw sugar. The Museum, which was nationally accredited in 2009, is open from 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and from 2 until 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission $4 Adults; $2 Seniors, children, Veterans, AAA members.