Welcome to Baldwin

By 1856 Last Island had about a hundred summer homes and a large hotel, and some 400 people were there on August 10 when a Category 4 hurricane struck. An enslaved man named Richard urged his enslaver, Thomas Mille, to move the family into the stable, the one building the storm did not flatten; Mille refused. Richard survived there and later carried the injured Emma Mille to a doctor. Roughly 200 people died. The steamer Star's hull stayed afloat and sheltered survivors until a rescue boat arrived three days later.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chitimacha Museum — 3.2 mi
  The Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana's own museum at Charenton: the tribe's account of its territory, the French wars and enslavement, the land held in trust, and river cane baskets.
• Grevemberg House Museum — 3.7 mi
  Franklin's 1851 Greek Revival townhouse, the official St. Mary Parish museum, saved from demolition by one vote and set in the Franklin Historic District on Bayou Teche.
• Wedell-Williams Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum — 19 mi
  A Louisiana State Museum in Patterson on the world's largest cypress sawmill town and the Wedell-Williams racing planes, with a theater and changing exhibits.
• Shadows-on-the-Teche — 20 mi
  A National Trust site in New Iberia built 1831 to 1834 for sugar planters David and Mary Weeks, now interpreted around the 1,112 people the Weeks family enslaved, among them Charity Polk, Amos, Patty, Isaac and Louisa.

More markers nearby

• The Massé - Darby House — 0.5 mi
• Jefferson Davis Louisiana Association — 2.4 mi
• Welcome to Charenton and the Chitimacha Reservation — 3.0 mi
• Chitimacha Veterans' Monument — 3.2 mi