Stationary gas engines and, gasoline tractors are among the many
interesting items exhibited at the Louisiana State University Rural
Life Museum, at Baton Rouge.
We visited the museum while on tour with a group from the
Mississippi Queen steamboat, this past spring. The museum is
located on the Burden Research Plantation, a 450-acre property
owned by LSU.
Gas engine restorers should visit the museum, and volunteer to
do some work on the engines which are in the collection. These
include:
An I.H.C. Horizontal, 4 HP, 400 RPM, Serial No. R3551/D; a
Fairbanks-Morse, 3 HP, 475 RPM, Serial No. 472816; Fuller &
Johnson Mfg. Co., 2? HP, 500 RPM, Serial No. 91453, and a
McCormick-Deering by International Harvester, 1? HP, 500 RPM,
Serial No. A4737.
The tractors are a Case, 4 cylinders, Size CC, No. C336314, from
the early 1920s, and a Samson 4 cylinders, Model M, No. 18039, from
the late 1910s.
There is also a scale model of ‘The General,’ a famous
Civil War locomotive. This is a steam-powered working engine built
by John Fleitas of Madisonville, La., in the late 1960s. It is on
loan from John Q. Kissner.
Also in the museum is a steam-powered tractor model, 4 feet
long, 1 foot 8 inches high, in working condition, on loan from John
Q. Kissner.
This is an impressive outdoor-indoor museum, set up to tell the
story of oldtime farm life in Louisiana. It has three main
divisions.
The Barn contains all sorts of mementos of rural life, from
prehistoric times into the 20th Century; The Working Plantation
includes buildings which are authentically furnished to tell of all
life activities in an 18th or 19th Century working plantation-
comissaiy, overseer’s house, kitchen, slave cabins, sick house,
schoolhouse, blacksmith’s shop and sugar-house, and the Folk
Architecture exhibit, shown through four buildings-a country
church, a pioneer’s cabin and corncrib, and a Acadian
house.
An oldtime cemetery is also open to visitors.
The idea for the museum came from Steele Burden and Miss lone
Burden, longtime Louisiana State University employes, and Dr. Cecil
G. Taylor, former LSU Chancellor. Development started in 1970, and
many persons have aided since.
Oscar Richard, administrator, had the photographs taken for GEM,
and we thank him.
Stationary gas engines (left to right) IHC Horizontal, 4 HP;
Fairbanks-Morse, 3 HP; Fuller & Johnson, 2? HP;
McCormick-Deering engine by International Harvester, 1? HP.