Frogmore
COTTON PLANTATION & GINS
GROUP TOUR OPTIONS
Frogmore Cotton Plantation & Gins is one of the only plantations or historical attractions where your groups can actually pick cotton (July - April)
Frogmore is the only cotton plantation in the South offering a comprehensive guided tour that fully explains the causes and effects of change on a working cotton plantation from the 1700's through today. Frogmore is a one-of-a-kind tour since the owners are the costumed guides along with their staff. Visitors receive the most thorough explanation of slave culture and the plantation system in America, based on former slave narratives and extensive archives while viewing the tools and antiques in the authentically restored dependency buildings on the property.
​
A golf cart for handicapped persons and complimentary beverages are included in all adult group tours.
For details on group tour rates contact Lynette or Buddy Tanner, owners at 318-757-2453 or by emailing frogmore@bayou.com. Admissions can be paid upon arrival, prepaid, or by credit card (AMEX, Master Card, VISA, Discover). Advanced reservations required for groups of twenty or more.
​
Group Tour Info for Adult Groups of Twenty or More
​
-
Each bus/group is personally welcomed and bidded farewell .
-
On-site videos and translations in English, French,German and Spanish
-
Authentically furnished slave row cabins dating to 1810
-
Wheelchair accessible and golf cart available
-
Beverages offered during the tour. Homemade lemonade or ice water in warm weather and hot tea, coffee, or water in cool weather.
COTTON THEN & NOW
Group and Individual
Call for group rates
1.5
hrs
Historical cotton & plantation culture is the story told at Frogmore Plantation, and there is cotton in the fields to pick from mid-July through April; then planting begins anew. An 1800-acre working cotton plantation, Frogmore has 19 restored antebellum structures that date from the early 1800's. Along with the history of the early Natchez planters and their slaves, the tour includes a rare Smithsonian quality steam cotton gin and then contrasts the historical methods with modern day planting, harvesting, and computerized ginning of cotton.
​
The tour begins upon arrival and is fully guided through eight historical buildings. Complimentary golf carts are provided for those with special needs. The guides tell of the evolution of change beginning in the 1790's through the war that created the lifestyle called sharecropping.
​
Guides explain the chores, the crops, the duties of slaves, and the role of their mistress of the plantation in contrast to her role when in her townhome. They also relate the botanical aspects of cotton kept in the field nearly twelve months a year. Historical sacks are ready for picking.
​
A highlight is the tour of the Smithsonian quality steam gin listed on the National Register. This pre-civil war building houses rare 1884 Munger equipment. Robert S. Munger was the first person to invent suction in the gins and also the continuous ginning system with the double-box press, all patented in 1884.
​
Guides relate early French history with its unique legal system and slave code, plus French contributions of cotton and sugar cane to Louisiana. A sugarcane exhibit, historic mule-driven sugarcane mill, and nearby barn are part of the easy walking tour. (Golf carts furnished if needed.)
​
The historic commissary is a converted children’s center with displays explaining the life of the children, both slave and free, along with historic games that our younger visitors today may learn and enjoy.
​
An 1810 hand-pegged dogtrot, furnished authentically as the overseer’s cottage, resonates with secret songs of the slaves. Benches or tables on the porch beckon visitors to picnic overlooking the cotton fields.
​
At the cooking cabin the guide relates the blending of African and European cuisine and how it merged into southern fare today. Historical slave narrations on display describe daily meals, seasonal foods, and special dishes on Sunday and holidays.
​
The living quarters next door has the original shingle roof and ceiling rafters with the bark still on much of the wood. The 1840 cabin is both an authentic slave cabin and a post-war sharecropper cabin. Furnished rooms illustrate the timeline.
​
The washhouse/sewing cabin houses a spinning wheel, loom, quilting rack, ironing supplies, and rare 1800's washing machine.
​
To conclude the tour, visitors take a short stroll back to the plantation store passing by the smokehouse, three-hole privy, 1790’s log cabin, and pigeonnier. After browsing the authentically furnished 1800’s sharecropper store, the last stop is the modern facility with its 900 bales-per-day cotton gin. The gin actually operates in the fall, but other times appears to be running via video technology.
​
Of the eleven other buildings on the property, visitors may independently tour privies, a mid-1800’s plantation church with original furnishings, and a seedcotton house featuring a cotton buyer’s office, along with displays of architectural tools and antiques used to prepare, plant, and harvest the cotton.
​
This tour may be combined with the civil war tour for a discounted rate.
PLANTATION CIVIL WAR : CHALLENGES AND CHANGES
Group and Individual
Call for group rates
1.5
hrs
To commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, Frogmore Plantation is offering a special tour - a concise but complete history of the Civil War on plantations, including causes beginning with our constitution, conflicts between Confederates and Unionists, economics and politics that fueled the fires, and effects on slaves and owners.
This tour does not discuss battle strategy, but does include the Union army regime and takeover of the Natchez District. Frogmore was the site of encampment and skirmish for 1,776 Union troops led by Col. Bernard Farrar including the Illinois infantry and heavy artillery. The old Natchez District included Eastern Louisiana, and many plantation owners were Union, not Confederate sympathizers.
Text includes effects of federal army occupation on area plantations, federal corral in Natchez for freed slaves, Confederate guerilla activity against Union planters, and the effects of the war on the women & children left behind, along with the plantation crops, gins, and food supplies. (This tour has no duplication with other tours offered at Frogmore.) (Group tours may optionally have live vocalists incorporating the Civil War era songs of the slaves and freedmen who joined the armies.)
DELTA MUSIC
Group Only
Call for group rates
2.5
hrs
This tour takes visitors on a journey of the South through song. Seated in a rare 1800's plantation church with original pews, visitors listen to outstanding vocalists and superior historical narration that relates the trials and triumphs of life on a plantation. The singing and narrations continue through the furnished cabins in the quarters.
After refreshments in the plantation store, a step-on-guide accompanies your group to the State of Louisiana Delta Music Museum. Enroute to Ferriday, your group listens to specially recorded blues, ragtime and jazz while your guide highlights the artists and changes in style for each genre. After arrival to the music museum, your are greeted by the director who gives you a guided tour while relating intimate stories about Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley, Aaron Neville, Conway Twitty, Fats Domino and other Delta musicians featured in the museum. Listen to their famous Delta songs.
1.5
hrs
CHRISTMAS ON THE PLANTATION
Group Only
Call for group rates
Rand McNally chose Frogmore Plantation as a “Must See” site in the South. Nineteen historic buildings dating from the 1790’s to 1900 are a restored tribute to an 1800’s working cotton plantation. Six buildings are toured during the visit. A tour of the cotton fields allows visitors to pick cotton or take photos by the field for a memento. Golf carts are available for handicapped.
​
“Christmas on the Plantation” features live vocalists performing parlor music and songs from the quarters that are intertwined with narration detailing the holiday season via the words of former slaves and mistresses. Their testimonies give visitors an accurate picture of a typical plantation Christmas as well as “surprises” about the origins of the music and lifestyle on a cotton plantation.
​
Events triggering changes on plantations and ultimately freedom with the 13th amendment assist visitors in understanding the transition from slavery into sharecropping. The musical conclusion is especially heartwarming.
​
Guests are seated in a rare 1800’s plantation church with original handmade pews for the musical presentation and then take a guided tour the authentically decorated quarters. An optional bonus would be a tour of the National Register steam engine cotton gin and computerized modern cotton gin.
COTTON PLANTATION TOUR FOR SCHOOLS
Group Only
$5.00 ages 6-12
$10.00 ages 13-17
1.5
hrs
Students learn best when they can see and experience history. Lynette and Lynn, both former teachers, have created a fun, educational field trip and can adjust it to various age levels.
The tour is interactive: elementary students use tambourines and sticks to keep rhythm while learning the history of gospel music. (Optionally, an African American vocalist can perform the historical songs for an additional flat fee of $75 per tour. Several classes may share the cost.)
​
Along with the hands-on learning of history, we strive to meet the needs of grade level requirements for each grade, such as identifying geographical features and natural resources, comparing cultural traditions, and explaining causes and effects of migrations to the Deep South..
We include a review guide for grade level teachers. (Home school teachers may request one via email.)
Frogmore Plantation has the most comprehensive southern history tour available. Frogmore is the only 1,800 acre working historical and modern cotton plantation in the South with 19 restored historical buildings that date from 1790 to 1900.
Dependent on grade levels, students experience the life of an antebellum slave, the uncertainty of a free sharecropper, and the high-tech mechanization of a working plantation today including botanical information about cotton. All students can actually pick cotton from August through mid-April, and by request, lower grades re-enact a slave wedding with a "jumpin' the broom" ceremony.
Historical games are part of the tour for elementary students, time permitting. Small groups rotate stations so that the students can learn several games.
​
The tours begin in a 1790's log cabin and take the students through the day in the life of a child in the early 1800's. We include chores, games, schooling, deeds, wills, and child and adult responsibilities for both slave families and planter families. Additionally, students view a brief video or power point with living history reenactments and/or early photos.
​
Students participate while learning African rhythms and understand how those cultural songs merged with protestant hymns to give birth to American Gospel Music. They learn the hidden meanings within the lyrics and the importance that music played in the work structure and social lives of the people on plantations.
The students learn how cotton evolved into the cash crop that supported the South's economy.
Dependent upon grade level, students tour a rare 1884 steam engine cotton gin with all its original equipment, a plantation church, barn, overseer's cottage, cooking cabin, slave quarters, washhouse/sewing cabin, and plantation store. Some grades learn about the plantation sugar cane mill and the syrup and sugar process. A summary of the tour per grade level is available when you contact us for more information.
​
At the conclusion of the historical tour, junior high and high school students also tour a computerized 900 bales-per-day cotton gin in the optional modern tour where students view cotton farming and ginning via large screen. Cotton and cottonseed products, worldwide production, and unusual cotton trivia with a question/answer session conclude the tour.
To view our computerized cotton gin in action, contact us for dates trips in September, October, or November.
​
Students are welcome to bring sack lunches to eat on our picnic tables before or after the tour.
Visitors may browse the authentic Frogmore Store to view the antiques on display or to purchase snacks, drinks, and souvenirs.
​
We look forward to sharing a memorable experience with your class.