The Museum is operated by the Louisiana State Penitentiary Museum Foundation which is a non-profit organization.  Although no admission is charged to visit the museum, donations are accepted to help defray the cost of operation. For information on scheduling a group tour of the penitentiary for your organization, contact Marsha Lindsey, Museum Director at (225) 655-2592

February 12, - March 19, 2012


 St. Francisville to now making preparations to host the travelling Smithsonian Institution exhibit called Journey Stories, which opens the first week in February in the West Feliciana Historical Society’s museum/visitor center on Ferdinand Street right in the heart of St. Francisville’s National Register Historic District.

This fascinating exhibition has been designed to encourage small towns across the country to examine in depth just who we are and how we got here, revealing nationwide migration patterns as early pioneers braved the perils of travel in the days of dangerous ocean shipwrecks and riverboat sinkings, runaway teams and overturned wagons on rude rutted dirt tracks, plus pirates and outlaws, wild animals and wild Indians.

As compelling as these national records are, the localized ones are even more so. St. Francisville certainly had some unique settlement routes, from the Mississippi River bringing early Anglo pioneers to an area that reminded them of the rolling hills of the Old Country, to the sunken traces worn deep into the loessial soils by horse-drawn coaches and covered wagons, to the country’s earliest standard-gauge railroad line. 


On Sunday, February 12, a grand opening reception kicks off the Journey Stories exhibit at the West Feliciana Historical Society Museum at 2 p.m., hosted by the Women’s Service League. The exhibit stays up until March 19, and every weekend is filled with special activities and programs, all free and open to the public.


 St. Francisville is the last Louisiana community to host Journey Stories; the exhibit comes down on March 19. But St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation and Afton Villa Gardens seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

Located in the Historic District. Restored hardware store with exhibits of the area's history, including Audubon, the Lost City of Bayou Sara, the West Florida rebellion and more. Daily 9-5 Sunday 9:30-5:00