Every Sunday in October

Gates open at 9:00 AM and Rodeo starts at 2:00 PM

  2012 Audubon Pilgrimage St. Francisville,  LA

The forty-first annual Audubon Pilgrimage March 16, 17 and 18, 2012, celebrates a southern spring in St. Francisville, the glorious garden spot of Louisiana’s English Plantation Country. For over four decades the sponsoring West Feliciana Historical Society has thrown open the doors of significant historic structures to commemorate  artist-naturalist John James Audubon’s stay as he painted a number of his famous bird folios, and 2012, being the 200^th anniversary of Louisiana statehood, promises to be a spectacular tour.

Features of the 2012 Audubon Pilgrimage include two  historic townhouses, Hillcroft and Prospect, and in the surrounding countryside two early 19^th-century plantations: Highland and Woodland, plus Afton Villa Gardens and Rosedown and Audubon State Historic Sites, three 19^th-century churches and the Rural Homestead with lively demonstrations of the rustic skills of daily pioneer life. The fascinating Smithsonian Institution exhibit Journey Stories, examining who we are and how we got here, fills the Historical Society museum, and two other historic buildings downtown hold the popular antiques show and sale. Tour hostesses are clad in the exquisitely detailed costumes of the 1820’s, nationally recognized for their authenticity.

The National Register-listed historic district around Royal Street is filled during the day with the happy sounds of costumed children singing and dancing the Maypole; in the evening as candles flicker and fireflies flit among the ancient moss-draped live oaks, there is no place more inviting for a leisurely stroll. Friday evening features old-time Hymn Singing at the United Methodist Church, Graveyard Tours at Grace Episcopal cemetery, and a wine and cheese reception featuring a style show of glorious period costumes at Bishop Jackson Hall. Light Up The Night Saturday evening features live music and dancing, dinner and drinks.

For tickets and tour information, contact West Feliciana Historical Society, Box 338, St. Francisville, LA 70775; phone 225-635-6330 or 225-635-4224; online www.audubonpilgrimage.info, email sf@audubonpilgrimage.info. For information on St. Francisville overnight accommodations, shops, restaurants, and recreation in the Tunica Hills, see www.stfrancisville.us or www.stfrancisville.net.

The forty-first annual Audubon Pilgrimage March 16, 17 and 18, 2012, celebrates a southern spring in St. Francisville, the glorious garden spot of Louisiana’s English Plantation Country. For over four decades the sponsoring West Feliciana Historical Society has thrown open the doors of significant historic structures to

February 25, 2012 8:30 AM - 2:30 PM

This event recognizes outstanding regional authors and provides a forum for discussion of their work.

December 2, 3, 2011

EVERYBODY LOVES A PARADE -- CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA

by Anne Butler

Nothing says Christmas to an excited child more than a parade, especially a safe small-town one like St. Francisville’s popular Christmas in the Country parade the first Saturday each December, complete with marching bands and decorated floats, Santa resplendent in his sleigh.

Christmas in St. Francisville, historically the commercial center of surrounding English Louisiana cotton plantations has always been a magical time. In the 19th century, country folks from miles around would pile into wagons to do their weekly shopping in the little town’s dry-goods emporiums that offered everything from buggies to coffins, gents’ fine furnishings and ladies’ millinery. And at Christmas time, tiny tots would press their noses against frosted storefront windows to gaze with wistful longing at elegant china dolls and wooden rocking horses.

It’s still that way today, and the historic little rivertown’s Christmas in the Country celebration on December 2, 3, 2011 pays tribute to its heritage and showcases its continuing vitality as the center of culture and commerce for the entire surrounding region.

Millions of tiny white lights trace soaring Victorian trimwork and grace gallery posts to transform the entire town into a veritable winter wonderland for Christmas in the Country, as special activities throughout the extensive National Register-listed downtown Historic District provide fun for the whole family at this celebration of the season, a joyful alternative to mall madness.

For visitor information, call Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities, including the lively monthly third Saturday morning Community Market Day in Parker Park) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

June 8, 9, 10, 2012
Grace Episcopal Church & Cemetary

This event commemorates the brief moment of brotherhood given for the burial of a Union officer, Lt. Commander John E. Hart, by his brother Masons that stopped a bloody war, if only for a few mournful moments.

July 27, 28, 2012

This event starts with a wine & cheese social at Rosedown Plantation. Saturday there will be biologist at two private gardens banding hummingbirds.

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.

The 24th Annual Southern Garden Symposium & Workshops
October 112, 13, 2012-  Workshops on gardening, seminars, social events....

October 26, 27 and 31st, 2012

Experience the tru meaning of Halloween at America's mos Haunted House

August 25, 2012