Dome

Interior, docent in costume with old map in central hallway with a wall mural of a sugar cane field (not historic); An historic plantation complex (with eight buildings) and house museum. The current main house was completed in 1840 in Greek Revival style. (An older house remains behind it, the date is debated; some believe the core is the original French 1775 house with Federal additions). The plantation had its beginnings when French colonists Alexander Latil and Mares Conwan obtained all of the native Houma tribe's land on the east side of the Mississippi River in 1774. It was a working sugar plantation by 1803, when the United States obtained the area through the Louisiana Purchase. The more than 10,000-acre (4,000 ha) estate was sold to John Burnside, a native of Belfast, Ireland, in 1857; he increased the size and built four sugar mills. With over 800 slaves on it and Burnside's many surrounding plantations, it was the center of the largest slave holding in Louisiana prior to the American Civil War. It escaped destruction in the war because Burnside was still a British citizen. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 7/6/2015)