• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Heart of Louisiana Logo

The Heart of Louisiana

  • Staycations
  • Regions
    • New Orleans Region
    • Capital Region
    • Acadiana
    • Southwest Louisiana
    • Central Louisiana
    • Northshore
    • North Louisiana
    • Bayou Region
  • 60 Second Road Trips
  • TV Stories
  • Buy Photos
  • Recent Posts
  • Show Search
Hide Search
Home/Capital Area/West Baton Rouge Museum
musicians playing acoustic instruments to small audience at west baton rouge museum

West Baton Rouge Museum

jamming to old time music

Once a month the West Baton Rouge Museum hosts a gathering of musicians and those who enjoy listening to a jam session featuring “old time music”. And old-time country tunes seem to dominate the playlist.

man playing guitar and singing and other man playing upright bass on jam session
Musician Kent Louque leads the jam session.

playing old songs at the west baton rouge museum

A half dozen musicians sit in a semi-circle inside an air-conditioned meeting room at the West Baton Rouge Museum on a hot August afternoon. When the weather cools, they sometimes use an old Juke Joint that’s among a collection of old plantation buildings on the grounds of the museum in Port Allen, Louisiana. On this Sunday, the crowd is small. But jam leader Kent Louque tells me that they have had as many as 34 musicians strumming acoustic guitars, fiddles, mandolin, string bass and singing at the monthly Second Sunday Jams. Louque leads the group through a catalogue of old songs. And he favors old country tunes from the early to mid-20th century. He tells me that attendance is still rebounding after cancellations due to COVID.

old time jam session featured on tv

Watch this Heart of Louisiana TV featured on the Old Music Jam Session

New players are encouraged to join in. Louque says, “It’s for all musicians at any level. I encourage that,” he adds, “because I want to see the better guys come so I can learn from them.” And most of the songs only use basic chords, so even beginners can strum along. In addition to the second Sunday Old Music Jam Session, a Cajun Music Jam Session is held on the third Sunday of the month. Check out the West Baton Rouge Museum Music Schedule.

The sugarcane museum

This museum has earned the nickname of the Sugarcane Museum because many of its exhibits feature the history of the West Baton Rouge Parish sugar industry. One of the main attractions is a large, electric-powered model of an old mechanized sugar mill. With the push of a button, the gears turn and conveyor belts move to give visitors a sense of how sugar mills functioned more than a century ago. The model is also a part of history. “It was made for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis,” museum educator Andre St. Romain tells me. “There was a pavilion there dedicated to the sugarcane industry and the big attraction was the model,” he adds.

gears on model of old sugar mill at museum
Gears on 120-year-old model of sugar mill
model of old sugar mill fills room at museum
Old sugar mill model fills museum display room

blacksmith in the barn at west baton rouge museum

Blacksmith Ben Deshotels occasionally works in an old red barn behind the museum. He hammers pieces of hot metal into various decorative shapes. Deshotels shows me how he hand-cranks the bellows and heats metal rods until they glow a bright red-yellow. Then he twists and hammers the softened metal into a new shape. “I usually aim for a yellow color,” Deshotels explains, “which is about 18-hundred degrees Fahrenheit.”

old buildings saved from nearby plantations

oak trees and wooden cabins painted rad at West Baton Rouge Museum
Workers’ cabins from nearby sugar plantation behind the museum
Red wooden slave cabin at West Baton Rouge Museum
Pre-Civil War cabin for enslaved workers from a West Baton Rouge Parish plantation
Green horse-drawn wagon in front of old general store at West Baton Rouge Museum
Authentic general store and horse-drawn wagon on display

directions to the west baton rouge museum

845 N Jefferson Ave, Port Allen, LA 70767

More To Do near Baton Rouge

USS Kidd Destroyer ship in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

USS Kidd

    yellow iris in garden

    Baton Rouge Botanic Garden

      Red Japanese torri gate in garden in St. Francisville Louisiana

      Japanese-American Garden

        Written by:
        Dave McNamara
        Published on:
        September 13, 2022
        Thoughts:
        No comments yet

        Categories: Capital Area, Featured

        Reader Interactions

        Leave a Reply Cancel reply

        Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

        Heart of Louisiana logo

        Footer

        Copyright © 2025 Heart of Louisiana ยท Web Design

        • Facebook
        • Instagram
        • About Dave McNamara
        • Contact
        • Advertising Opportunities
        • Archives
        • Privacy Policy
        • Site Map
        We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Privacy policyOk