Welcome to Charenton and the Chitimacha Reservation

Split river cane is still central to Chitimacha identity and income. The designs draw on the natural world. In the late 1800s weavers worked with the McIlhenny family to sell baskets across North America. The tribe has since restored stands of river cane on its own land, and with tribal support weavers have examined about 1,000 Chitimacha baskets held in museums around the country. Pauline Paul is described as a renowned basket weaver, and Christine Paul is pictured at the craft too. Charenton is where the Chitimacha Tribe keeps that knowledge up.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chitimacha Museum — 0.4 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 — 6.2 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.
• Shadows-on-the-Teche — 19 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.
• Wedell-Williams Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum — 20 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.

More markers nearby

• Chitimacha Veterans' Monument — 0.5 mi
• The Massé - Darby House — 3.4 mi
• Jefferson Davis Louisiana Association — 5.4 mi
• Donelson Caffery — 6.2 mi