Sugar Row Plantations

Sugar Row Plantations. Grand old estates, rich in history. , Sugarcane cultivation brought wealth to planters here along Bayou Black and present-day highway 311. A handful of mansions remain standing, flanked by majestic trees. The Sugar Row Plantations thrived during the decades following the end of slavery. , Each plantation operated like a working town with sugar houses, company stores, outbuildings, gardens, and rows of workers' cabins- all surrounded by sugarcane fields as far as the eye could see. Mansions fronted the bayou., Photo captions left to right - , Southdown Plantation's mansion stands south of here in Houma, and features museum exhibits and historically furnished rooms. A guided tour of the mansion (built c. 1859) reveals how the sugar industry shaped the history of Terrebonne Parish., Note behind you highway LA 311, and behind that, Little Bayou Black. The field to your right remains an active sugarcane field., Ardoyne Plantation's workers could redeem these tokens only at the company store, which is now an antique shop known as The Old Green Store, just south of here., The estate in front of you is Ardoyne Plantation built c. 1894. For six generations, it has been owned by the Shaffer family - who still live here. Ardoyne's Victorian gothic-style interior features a hand-painted staircase, period furnishings, and family heirlooms. Tours are available., Magnolia Plantation, build c. 1855 in the Greek Revival style, stands five miles north on 311. Scenes for the Oscar-winning Twelve Years a Slave were filmed here in 2013. Not open to the public., Crescent Farm, built by William Shaffer in 1849, is located three miles south on 311. The plantation produced sugar until the 1920s. Not open to the public.