Welcome to the official Facebook page for Cane River Creole National Historical Park. Oakland & Magnolia Plantations are located near Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Experience history when you visit Cane River Creole National Historical Park's Oakland and Magnolia Plantations, located near historic Natchitoches, LA. Natchitoches, established in 1714, is the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase territory.
OAKLAND PLANTATION offers visitors a chance to tour the largest surviving French Creole plantation in the South. Main House tours are available every day at 1pm. Self-guided tours and cell phone tours are available for Oakland's numerous outbuildings, including the Plantation Store, Overseer's House, Slave/Tenant Cabins, Mule Barn, Cook's Cabin, Pigeoniers (pigeon houses), and many more.
MAGNOLIA PLANTATION offers visitors a chance to tour the historic Gin/Press Barn, with Ranger-led tours available every Saturday and Sunday at 1pm and 3pm. Self-guided tours and cell phone tours are available for Magnolia's numberous outbuildings, including the Plantation Store, Blacksmith Shop, Pigeoniere (pigeon house), Slave Hospital/Overseer's House, and brick Slave/Tenant Cabins.
PLEASE NOTE: Magnolia's Main House is privately owned and NOT available to tour at this time.
Cane River Creole National Historical Park is SIGNIFICANT because:
• It illustrates the process of Creolization through the convergence of French Colonial, Spanish Colonial, African, American, and American Indian cultures and the
adaptations of those cultures to each other in the New World.
• It represents a relationship between cultures and a landscape, which is unique to this region.
• It illustrates a succession of agricultural and labor systems, changing technologies, and evolving social practices over three centuries.
• The French Creole cotton plantations reflect completeness in their historic settings, including landscapes, outbuildings, structures, furnishings, and artifacts; and they are the most intact French Creole cotton plantations in the U.S.
While admiring a hand-wrought door hinge or a cleverly-worked wooden gate, we might reflect on the social and agricultural practices that built these tenant houses, pigeonniers, carpenter and blacksmith shops. The hand-hewn cypress beams, ancient bousillage walls, and weathered fencerows may remind us of the people who not only left us this legacy of rural landscapes and farm buildings, but also labored to bring the United States to the country it is today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWXrU1RzEFE
Cane River Creole National Historical Park preserves the resources and cultural landscapes of the Cane River region and enhances the understanding of its peoples and traditions through research, interpretation, education and technical assistance.
Gift Shop available upon request.
