Magnolia Mound Plantation

Subject: History

2161 Nicholson Drive
Baton Rouge, LA 70802

(225) 343-4955 | General Information
(225) 343-4955 | Reservations
(225) 343-6739 | Fax

What you need to know!

General Public Hours and Admission Rates: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00am – 4:00pm, Sunday, 1:00pm – 4:00pm; $8.00 Adults, $6.00 Seniors and Students 18-22 years old, $3.00 Children 5 – 17 years old, Free for Children under 5 years old

Student Tour Hours and Admission Rates: Tuesday – Thursday, 10:00am – 3:00pm; $5.00 Students, Free for required Chaperones, $8.00 additional Adults

Student to Chaperone Ratio Required: 10:1
Advance Time Needed to Make Reservations: Two weeks
Advance deposit required $25.00 prior to field trip date.
Number of Students per Visit: Up to 150
Suggested Length of Time for Visits: Two hours
Handicapped Accessible: Not historic house museum; Yes visitor center
Grade Level Appropriate: 3rd – 12th
Lunch Facilities: A covered picnic area is on-site and fast food is nearby.
Gift Shop: Yes
Bus parking available

Tell Us About It!

Magnolia Mound Plantation is conveniently located between LSU and downtown Baton Rouge. This historic site is a BREC property (Recreation and Park Commission of East Baton Rouge Parish), and it is accredited by the American Association of Museums. Here, visitors are immersed into 19th century South Louisiana culture from the early River Road plantation days. This colonial period museum opened its doors in 1975 and continues to offer school tours, classes, lectures, exhibits, camps, and historic preservation programs. Today, Magnolia Mound Plantation sits on 16 of the original 900 acres along the Mississippi River. The plantation house, which dates from 1791, has retained its Creole character for over 200 years. The site also offers visitors the chance to see an authentic slave cabin and interpretive exhibit, overseer’s house, a working open-hearth kitchen, pigeonnier, carpentry shop, weaving shop, and an interpretive visitor’s center. The grounds are graced with an extensive kitchen garden, cash crop garden, fruit and Magnolia trees and 200-year-old live oaks.

What Can We See and Do There?

Costumed docents lead visitors through the fully furnished house museum interpreting the story of the house and the Duplantier family who lived at Magnolia Mound Plantation from 1801 to 1827. Tuesdays and Thursdays, October – May visitors can watch open-hearth cooking demonstrations. Students see this entirely French household and imagine the breadth of activity with enslaved workers in the sugarcane fields and in the main house. Other historic building exhibits include Slavery in the South in a reconstructed slave cabin and Materia Medica concerning medical care in the overseer’s house. School tours include the big house, kitchen, and grounds and interactive programs. The programs include Plantation Heritage, in which students observe open-hearth cooking of a Creole breakfast and get to enjoy the results; Grandmother’s Attic in which students have a chance to examine historic reproductions; and In The Quarter, a sensitive look at slave life set in the slave cabin.

How Do We Get There?

From I-10 take the Louise St. Exit and turn left on Louise St. at the stop sign. Travel three blocks and turn right on Highland Rd. Travel two blocks and turn left on Terrace St. At Nicholson Drive turn left and travel one mile. The plantation is on the left.

Bad Weather! Now What Do We Do?

Call the museum to confirm rainy day plans.

Louisiana State Educational Benchmarks and Standards

K-4th grades: G-1A-E1-2; G-1B-E2; G-1C-E3; E-1A-E3-5; G-1B-E6; H-1A-E1-2-3; H-1B-E1; H-1C-E1-4
5th-8th grades: G-1B-M2-4; G-1C-M2-4-6; E-1A-M9;E-1B-M6-7; H-1A-M1-2-5; H-1B-M2
9th-12th grades: G-1B-H1; G-1C-H2; E-1A-H8; H-1A-H1-2; H-1B-H2-4

What Can We Do In Class Before Our Field Trip?

Teachers will receive a pre-visit packet to confirm their field trip plans to Magnolia Mound Plantation. Check out www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp for Teaching with Historic Places by the National Park Service. Teachers may borrow the Traveling Trunk filled with hands-on objects and resource materials.

S-T-R-E-T-C-H Out Your Field Trip Benefits

Visit http://lhn.lsu.edu/lhin/habs/magnolia/POEMM/ for Creole short stories, Louisiana Heritage Network links, and a virtual tour of Magnolia Mound Plantation. Students can develop a colonial plantation character and draw the person in period clothes. Have the class draw a sugar-plantation. Each student can place his/her character onto the drawing where each character would be working.