Oakland Plantation, Cotton plantation in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana.
Oakland Plantation is a cotton plantation in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, with 17 original structures remaining from different periods of construction. The buildings include the main house, outbuildings such as pigeonniers, an overseer's dwelling, grain storage, and several workshops that together show how the property was organized and used.
The main house was completed in 1821 by Jean Pierre Emanuel Prud'homme and Catherine Lambre, marking the start of one of the first cotton plantations in the region. Over the following decades, the plantation expanded with additional outbuildings and workshops that reflected the growing scale of operations.
The plantation is associated with the Creole community of Isle Brevelle, and the Prud'homme family name remains tied to the area, with many descendants still living nearby. The National Park Service has recorded interviews with Traditionally Associated People from Oakland and Magnolia plantations, producing five documentary films.
Oakland Plantation lies on a bend of Cane River Lake in the Bermuda community, reached by Louisiana Highway 119 near Natchitoches. The National Park Service owns the main buildings and surrounding land, acquired in 1997 for Cane River Creole National Historical Park. The house interiors are furnished as they were in the 1860s, at the end of the antebellum era.
In 1904, descendant J. Alphonse Prud'homme won a gold medal at the St. Louis World's Fair for growing the highest-grade cotton in the South, a detail often missed by visitors touring the grounds.
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