Plantation Pastimes

Horses ran across cotton fields here before the cotton was picked. Races were sometimes laid out on temporary tracks in harvested fields, and most plantations, Magnolia included, kept a track. In the 1850s planter Ambrose LeComte's horse Mary Bowen won a silver trophy. By the mid-twentieth century plantations sponsored ball teams, among them the Magnolia Giants and the Melrose Pecans, and several Cane River players were recruited by the Negro Leagues. Under Jim Crow the lines of color relaxed at a game, and one neighbor remembered Sunday ballgames with ice cream and cake from Mr. Matt Hertzog.

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

• A Very Valuable Man — steps away
• Cash or Credit — steps away
• The Quarters Community — steps away
• Unearthing The Past — steps away