LSU Rural Life Museum

The LSU Rural Life Museum is holds Louisiana's history. This is a place where tourists can visit to capture Louisiana's culture. "It is located on the Burden Plantation, a 40-acre (160,000 m2) agricultural research experiment station. As a state with a diverse cultural ancestry, Louisiana has natives of French, Spanish, Native American, German, African, Acadian, and Anglo American heritage." The museum holds artifacts up to the 20th century.
The land on which the Rural Life Museum is located originally belonged to Philemon Thomas, a soldier, statesman, and leader of the force that captured Baton Rouge and West Florida from the Spanish in 1810. Later, the land was acquired by William S. Pike, a pioneer settler and prominent businessman in Baton Rouge. Mr. Pike, an uncle of Emma Gertrude Barbee, presented the parcel of land to her as a wedding gift upon her marriage to John Charles Burden in 1856. She and her husband named their plantation Windrush, after a small river which ran near his family home in England. The Burdens left Windrush following John’s death about 1870.
Over the years, every plant that could b e grown in this part of Louisiana has been grown in the Windrush Gardens, though exotics have been generally excluded. Both formal and wild areas were developed – a unique design which is intriguing as well as beautifulThe garden today is approximately 80 years old. A lovely lake has been added with two small islands in the middle. Duck houses for nesting wood ducks adorn the island, and both Louisiana and Japanese irises have been planted around the lakeshore. As years have passed, the gardens have become too shaded for many flowers, and others have become root-bound. Shortly before his death in 1995, Mr. Steele said, “The garden has become old, like me.” But visitors from around the world still stroll the curving paths through a part of Baton Rouge history – still beautiful, still living, still a place “where comfort, peace and tranquility reign.”
The Merrick Walking Beam Steam Engine at the Rural Life Museum was manufactured in 1861 and is one of only eight American-built steam engines known to still exist. It was found on Longwood Plantation on the River Road and may have been purchased by the plantation’s owner, S.J. Gianelloni, Sr. for making boards to use on the plantation. The cast iron engine has a fluted column (cast in one piece) supporting the beam. The fly wheel is 8 feet in diameter and was used to turn the engine, not for turning the belt. The belt pulley is on the crankshaft. Estimates of generated power are 10 to 40 horsepower.
This bronze statue of an elderly black man was created to memorialize the accomplishments and contributions of the African-Americans in nineteenth century Louisiana. After a long and colorful history, the statue was acquired by the LSU Rural Life Museum from the Bryan/Ducournau family in 1974.The statue of an old man tipping his hat was commissioned in 1926 and erected in 1927 at the foot of Front Street in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Set in a small park within a circular drive, the statue became a major tourist attraction as a one of a kind memorial to black workers of the nineteenth century. The statue has been known as the “Good Darky” and “Uncle Jack.” The original plaque (no longer visible) reads, “Dedicated to the arduous and faithful services of the good darkies of Louisiana.” Newspapers and magazines, including the National Geographic, contained articles and pictures of the statue and stated, “A visit to Natchitoches was not complete without a visit to the statue.”