A French Connection (Magnolia Pigeonnier)

In France, keeping pigeons was once a privilege of nobles and seigneurial lords, who granted permission to build one or two dovecotes on their estates, while other landholders could build only in proportion to their land. By the 1600s France had about 42,000 pigeonniers. Each nesting hole, or boulin, held one pair of birds, so the number of holes measured a dovecote's capacity, and some interiors held only a rotating ladder, the potence, for reaching eggs and squabs. The plainer pigeonniers of Louisiana inherited that tradition, and in French-heritage Louisiana the word pigeonaire is common.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. Augustine Church, Isle Brevelle — 3.4 mi
  The parish church at the heart of the Cane River Creoles of color, begun by Augustin Metoyer on his family's land and still holding Mass for the community that grew from Marie Thérèse Coincoin's children.
• Melrose Plantation — 3.7 mi
  The Cane River estate built on land granted to Louis Metoyer, son of Marie Thérèse Coincoin, with the Yucca House and African House, later an artists' retreat; guided tours Thursday to Sunday.
• Kisatchie National Forest: Longleaf Vista — 6.1 mi
  A free ridge-top overlook and 1.5-mile loop above the 8,700-acre Kisatchie Hills Wilderness on the Longleaf Trail Scenic Byway, in the forest Caroline Dormon helped win in 1930.
• Cane River Creole National Historical Park — 8.6 mi
  Oakland and Magnolia, two Cane River cotton plantations kept as they stood, told through the enslaved families who worked them, the 1864 and 1804 freedom seekers and the tenant farmers who stayed into the 1960s.

More markers nearby

• Plantation Pastimes — steps away
• A Very Valuable Man — steps away
• Cash or Credit — steps away
• Farming Transitions — steps away