Hidden Louisiana: There’s More to the Bayou State than Meets the Eye

We brake for anything weird, unusual or off the beaten path and a tour through Louisiana never disappoints. Everyone knows there are tourist attractions in our unique state, but many oddities and hidden gems as well. We divided the state into regions, so follow us as we take you on travels through Louisiana to unearth the unexpected.

Florida Parishes/Northshore

It’s a mystery

It’s difficult to describe the Abita Mystery House. A rambling collection of buildings filled with thousands of collectibles, found objects, unusual memorabilia, weird taxidermy and animated displays still doesn’t quite detail what’s inside because there’s so much more! Also called the UCM Museum, because the initials sound out “you-see-em mu-se-um,” it’s a roadside attraction, a museum of sorts and an art gallery since the owner is Abita Springs artist John Preble.

Look for taxidermy hybrids such as Buford the bassigator, a combination gator and bass fish, or Darrell the dogigator. There’s a Mardi Gras parade diorama and an Airstream filled with items. The Shard House is literally a barn constructed of barge wood that’s accented by pottery, glass and mirror shards (the bathroom is worth a peek) and the Hot Sauce House is filled with — you guessed it — bottles of liquid spice. There’s even paint-by-number pieces.

Capital City

The Room Where It Happened

If you’re heading to the Louisiana State Capitol for legislative business, or to view the spectacular view of Baton Rouge and the Mississippi River from its observation deck — Louisiana has the tallest capitol in the United States — be sure to pause outside the speaker’s office on the first floor and notice the bullet holes in the marble. It was here, on Sept. 8, 1935, that U.S. Sen. Huey P. Long, once governor of Louisiana, was shot. He died two days later and his death by an assassin or one of his guards is still argued today.

Long instigated the building of the Louisiana State Capitol, which rises 450 feet and 34 stories. The construction took only 14 months in 1932 and includes architectural gems, murals and outside steps that contain what was then the country’s 48 states. Long’s statue above his grave looks over his building from the adjoining 27-acre park.

New Orleans

Backstreet Cultural Museum

You don’t have to wait until Carnival to view the elaborate Mardi Gras Indian costumes. The Backstreet Cultural Museum in the historic Tremé neighborhood celebrates the contributions of the city’s African Americans to New Orleans culture, exhibiting those breathtaking Carnival costumes, plus photos, items from social aid and pleasure clubs, jazz funerals and more.

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CHECK IT OUT

Acadiana | The main branch of the Iberia Parish Library, located on Main Street in the heart of town, contains the Jazz Collection Room with items owned by jazz great William Gary “Bunk” Johnson, who lived and died in New Iberia. Be sure to also check out the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes next door.

WHO NAMED THAT TOWN?

Cenla | Lecompte was named for a horse who was named for a friend. Thomas Jefferson Wells’ chestnut colt was named for Well’s friend Ambroise Lecomte from Cane River. When the horse won a prized race, the residents decided to call the town Lecomte. A railroad depot painter accidentally put the “p” in the name and it’s been that way ever since.

TREASURE HUNT

Northeast Louisiana | There are flea markets and then there’s Big Creek Trade Days outside Ruston. We’re talking two enormous horizontal “barns” filled with collectibles, antiques and crafts, plus food vendors throughout the property. Big Creek Trade Days is actually a three-day weekend and occur monthly at 327 California Plant Road outside Dubach.

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New Orleans

St. Roch Cemetery

New Orleans cemeteries are known as “Cities of the Dead” for their above-ground tombs lining avenues of cemetery property. St. Roch Cemetery, however, gives homage to the sick and invalid with a chapel room filled with “ex-votos,” tokens such as leg braces and crutches placed there by patrons who have been healed by Saint Roch. This National Shrine of St. Roch remains the only American chapel dedicated to the French saint.

Florida Parishes/Northshore

Take in the waters

Grab a kayak and a paddle at Canoe & Trail Adventures and float down sleepy Cane Bayou, a tributary of Lake Pontchartrain east of Mandeville, or the Bogue Falaya with its sand bars from The Chimes restaurant in Covington. Prices are reasonable and the adventures accessible for all members of the family.

Shreveport

The American Rose Center

Louisiana is honored to have the national headquarters of the American Rose Society located only a short drive from downtown Shreveport. Naturally, the organization includes 118 acres of rose gardens featuring a variety of rose species as well as companion plants. The gardens are open year-round with special hours during blooming seasons and as part as the Louisiana Holiday Trail of Lights with thousands of shimmering lights, light displays and special Christmas events.

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FLYING WITH THE GATORS

Shreveport | There’s zip lining, and then there’s zip lining with gators. Something to tell your friends for sure. Gators & Friends Alligator Park and Exotic Zoo outside of Shreveport lets visitors zip line through multiple courses, including a final stretch 750 feet above 150 gators. We were told the best time to visit is winter when gators hibernate and don’t eat. Hmmm.

LOUISIANA’S UTOPIA

Southwest Louisiana | In 1917, a group of workers came to southwest Louisiana to create the Llano Del Rio Cooperative Colony, a community that supported itself in multiple ways, including the growing of food, medical care and education. This exercise in utopian li ving last for 20 years and today visitors may learn about the unique community at the Museum of the New Llano Colony in New Llano, north of Lake Charles.

HOUSES OF THE DEAD

Acadiana | We must be different in Louisiana and that includes our burial customs. In Rayne’s St. Joseph’s Catholic Church & Cemetery, the graves are buried in a north–south direction instead of the traditional east–west formation. In Mermentau Cove, the Istre Cemetery contains historic little houses over graves, some with working windows.

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Acadiana

Chauvin Sculpture Garden

Drive “down the bayou” on La. Highway 56 out of Houma toward Chauvin and just when you think you’ll hit Gulf waters, there’s an odd site at 5337 Bayouside Drive. The Chauvin Sculpture Garden was created by bricklayer Kenny Hill and contains more than 100 primarily religious concrete pieces, everything from angels and other celestial figures to images depicting the fight between good and evil. There’s even a 45-foot-tall lighthouse made up of 7,000 bricks.

Capital City

Cat Island

Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge north of Baton Rouge is home to a national champion bald cypress tree that’s 80-plus feet tall and 17 feet wide with a circumference of 56 feet. The bald cypress remains the largest tree of any species east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, one of the few massive cypress trees still in existence after the logging of Louisiana swamps in the early 20th century.

Plantation Country

Carville

For years, those suffering from Hansen’s disease, or leprosy, would be sent to the National Leprosarium at Carville, a hospital tucked away along the River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Many lived and died here and were buried in the hospital cemetery. Treatments improved and the facility closed, but visitors can learn of both the disease, property and its patients at the National Hansen’s Disease Museum.

Cenla

Spiritual Guidance

It began in Alexandria in 1940, a liquor store offering wines and spirits but sporting a neon sign akin to a church beacon — even though it’s a ghost calling people in. Folks stop for the wide selection of spirits but never resist snapping a photo of the colorful sign. Today, third generation owners Gus and Michelle Olah carry on as spiritual advisors with locations in Lake Charles and Prairieville.

Northeast Louisiana

Poverty Point

Around the time the Egyptian pyramids were constructed, a group of indigenous people planned a community in northeast Louisiana with elaborate precision: several earthen ridges in a semicircle facing a wide plaza with various mounds scattered about and what appears to be a giant earthen bird in the rear stretching its wings. The impressive Native American, pre-agricultural city on the Mississippi River flood plain made it ideal for trading among the Southern tribes with the trading network extending for hundreds of miles. Stones found on the site originated as far away as the Great Lakes.

Today, visitors may tour the grounds this massive city once occupied and enjoy a host of special events. The site outside the small town of Pioneer is considered so historically important that Poverty Point is a National Historic Landmark, a Smithsonian Affiliate and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park’s open daily except for major holidays.

Southwest Louisiana

Pinky the Pink Dolphin

Around 2007, a Pepto Bismol- pink animal surfaced in the Calcasieu ship channel outside Lake Charles, causing quite a stir. Named Pinky, the pink dolphin has now become a southwestern Louisiana celebrity. Visitors to the area, especially along the Creole Nature Trail All-American Road can spot Pinky in the channel and south towards Cameron.

Shreveport

Slice of Comfort

Folks visit Shreveport’s Strawn’s Eat Shop for breakfast or lunch or to enjoy one of their delicious icebox pies but what makes the experience unique are the murals lining the walls, everyone from the Three Stooges enjoying a slice of pie while Einstein utters “E=π?!!” to George Washington exclaiming to Abraham Lincoln, “I cannot tell a lie about a Strawn’s pie.”

New Orleans

Park it here

In 1891, an iron meteorite weighing several tons landed inside Audubon Park. Many people will tell you it was moved from neighboring mountains but that was a ruse to keep folks back in the day from chipping off pieces as souvenirs.

Inside nearby Audubon Zoo lies a hill where residents have rolled down for decades. It was created when the Civil Works Administration in 1933 piled dirt there while digging out lagoons for the zoo. Since kids loved the rare mound in flat Louisiana, it became known as Monkey Hill. As children, we were always taught that Monkey Hill was the highest point of the city, but Laborde Mountain in City Park beats it for elevation, a whopping 27 feet above sea level.

Southwest Louisiana

The Hanging Jail

You may get the heebie-jeebies before learning the odd stories in this concrete monstrosity. One involves Joe Genna and Molton Brasseaux who, in 1926, killed taxi driver Joe Brevelle and dumped his body in old Pickering Mill pond. The men were arrested, convicted of murder, and hanged in the Beauregard Parish jail.

Story has it that Genna and Brasseaux haunt DeRidder’s “Hanging Jail” and tour guides tell tales of ghostly sightings since many died within the 12-inch concrete walls of the 1914 Gothic-style building.

Plantation Country

World’s Smallest Church?

One wonders how a wedding might work in the Madonna Chapel of White Castle; Ripley’s Believe It or Not named it the smallest church in the world which may help if you’re trying to control your guest list. The chapel along the west bank of the River Road near Plaquemine was built in 1902 by Italian farmer Anthony Gullo who promised the Virgin Mary he would build a chapel in her name if his ill son recovered. The son rallied and Gullo built his church.

The original Madonna Chapel was only 7 feet by 7 feet but when they moved the tiny church in 1924 to accommodate the levee, the current chapel grew to 9 feet by 9 feet. It’s lovely inside and for those who wish to visit, the key is left in the mailbox.

Is it the smallest church? Arguably no, but it’s still fun to visit.

Capital City

Southern and LSU

French explorers named Baton Rouge for the red stick they spotted on a bluff above the Mississippi River, where Southern University is located today. Visit the school’s “Red Stick Sculpture” by alumnus Frank Hayden at what is believed to be the actual spot. At LSU, don’t miss a chance to say hello to Mike the Tiger, LSU’s live mascot who lives on the campus in the shadow of Tiger Stadium.

Northeast Louisiana

Visit Transylvania

The residents of Transylvania don’t miss a chance to promote their town’s name; they painted a bat on the town’s water tower. The name, however, comes from landowner W.L. Richards’ alma mater, Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. The college, by the way, is named for the 1770s Transylvania Colony in western Virginia.