Laurel Valley Plantation

Laurel Valley Store & Museum

The Laurel Valley Store & Museum is open daily 10:30 am to 4:30 pm, though hours vary due to the volunteer work force.

Located nearly two miles from the village along Highway 308 across from Bayou Lafourche, the site is a popular location for locals taking family photographs or senior pictures, and for bringing children to feed farm animals and play on the locomotives. Stocked with locally made jams, jellies, and honey, many also enjoy perusing the items in the consignment shop inside.

The Laurel Valley Store & Museum also holds two festivals each year, one in the spring and one in the fall (always held the last Sunday in April and the second to last Sunday in October). The festival features live Cajun music, local foods and homemade baked goods, and a vast assortment of locally handmade craft items, art, jewelry, and lots more.

Originally built in 1905 to replace the previous store that burned, the Laurel Valley Store served the needs of the plantation workers, as well as others who lived along the bayou. Customers could buy their weekly provisions, or waste an hour or two discussing current events. The building was knocked off its foundations by Hurricane Betsy in 1965.

With the help of the nonprofit Friends of Laurel Valley, the Laurel Valley Store & Museum opened its doors again in 1984.

Today many artifactts from around the region are on display within the store and museum. Outside the store are numerous antique wagons and tractors that would have been used in the farming of sugarcane during the early to mid-20th century. And while not the originals, there are also two antique railroad locomotives located on the site that are similar to those that would have hauled cane from the fields to the mill and to the bayou from the 1870s until the 1920s.