This geocaching adventure challenges you to visit each of Louisiana's State Parks and Historic Sites. Each State Park and Historic Site has a unique special mission with a story to tell, and offers its own very special geocaching adventure for you to experience. Each of these facilities has an official Geo Project cache, containing a special clue for you to find and record. These clues collectively will enable you to determine the coordinates of the mystery location of the Final Cache, which is located somewhere in the state of Louisiana. Use this Official LAOSP Clue Tracking Sheet to record all your clues.
As you travel our fine state, we encourage you to upload photos of your travels on the geocaching.com web pages. However, we ask that you please do not log clues or spoilers to the caches...they would have to be deleted to keep the game fun for everyone! Do tell us all about your travels and what you liked best about our parks and historic sites. As an extra incentive, and for a limited time, you can earn a Louisiana State Park Geocoin for visiting all of our State Parks and Historic Sites, and finding all the official geocaches placed for your pleasure! Prizes are limited to the supply in hand and will not be replenished.
Before you hunt for your first cache, click this link to read the rules for the Geo Project * Louisiana Office of State Parks. You must follow all the rules, to qualify to win one of these great prizes and collectibles.
This cache was place by the geocachers of Louisiana, on behalf of the Louisiana Office of State Parks. It is designed to bring your attention to these beautiful State Parks and Historic Sites. We ask that you join us by visiting them whenever you get a chance. Our State Park system is a great resource, so remember to "cache in and trash out".
Congratulations to Team Akers FTF!
Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site
1200 N. Main Street, St. Martinville, LA 70582
337-394-3754 or 1-888-677-2900 toll free
Email: longfellow@crt.la.gov
Directions: The site is located on LA 31 in St. Martinville, 30 minutes southeast of Lafayette. GPS Coordinates: N 30 8.0322, W 91 49.6047.
Hours of Operation: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wed-Sun. Closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Guided tours of historic Maison Olivier are available, and special interpretive programs and events take place throughout the year.
Entrance Fees: $4 per person; free for seniors (62 and over) and for children age 12 and under. Groups are asked to call in advance.
Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site explores the cultural interplay among the diverse peoples along the famed Bayou Teche. Acadians and Creoles, Indians and Africans, Frenchmen and Spaniards, slaves and free people of color-all contributed to the historical tradition of cultural diversity in the Teche region. French became the predominant language, and it remains very strong in the region today.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1847 epic poem Evangeline made people around the world more aware of the 1755 expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia and their subsequent arrival in Louisiana. In this area, the story was also made popular by a local novel based on Longfellow's poem, Acadian Reminiscences: The True Story of Evangeline, written by Judge Felix Voorhies in 1907.
Once part of the hunting grounds of the Attakapas Indians, this site became part of a royal French land grant first used as a vacherie, or cattle ranch. The first Acadians to settle in Louisiana established themselves here, on the banks of Bayous Teche and Tortue, on the edges of this vacherie.
When the grant was sold and subdivided, this section was developed as an indigo plantation. In the early 1800s, Pierre Olivier Duclozel de Vezin, a wealthy Creole, acquired this property to raise cotton, cattle, and eventually, sugarcane. He built the Maison Olivier, the circa 1815 plantation house which is the central feature of Longfellow-Evangeline SHS. His son, Charles, made improvements to the home in the 1840s. The structure is an excellent example of a Raised Creole Cottage, a simple and distinctive architectural form which shows a mixture of Creole, Caribbean, and French influences.
A reproduction Acadian Farmstead is situated along the bank of Bayou Teche. The Farmstead is an example of how a typical single-family farm would have appeared around 1800. The site includes the family home with an outdoor kitchen and bread oven, slave quarters and a barn. In the pasture located adjacent to the barn, there are cattle typical of those raised by the Creoles and Acadians at that time.
In 1934, the property became the first park of the Louisiana State Parks system. In 1974, Maison Olivier was designated a National Historic Landmark.
Your Clues to this Cache...
This Cache placed by af_juicy & zsandmann
Find it / Log it / Get Clue / Post Picture of You and Entrance Sign!
The cache is located inside the building. Please ask the attendant for a little help with locating it, and take a look around inside while here. The clue card is in the cache. We had a little trouble with getting this cache placed here, as geocachers in the past have created a bad name for us here, but with a little encouragement we got it. Hours of Operation: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday - Sunday. Closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Guided tours of historic Maison Olivier are available, and special interpretive programs and events take place throughout the year. Entrance Fees: $4 per person; free for seniors (62 and over) and for children age 12 and under.