Louisiana Orphan Train Museum/ Musée du train orphelin de Louisiane — Attraction in Opelousas

Located on Le Vieux Village property, this museum outlines the children who were brought down from New York as there were so many who were born to unwed mothers, parents who could not afford to keep their children for one reason or another and they were getting crowded at the asylums. The sisters at the Catholic Church set up homes for the children, not as an adoption officially, but with homes that would treat them as their own and then checked in annually to ensure they were being treated properly, which for the late 1800s and early 1900s is an amazing thing. No pictures are allowed to be taken inside due to the privacy of the families and the stigma of taking in orphans at that time. The lady working was full of information and gave a lot of information about the children involved and what happened as they grew up. This is only one city of many that children were brought to. To see the clothing and hear the stories was just amazing. I highly recommend this to anyone...

Our family stopped due to personal reasons, the words "orphan" and "train" were the main draw. It seemed that our visit might be brief. We met 2 women, whom we later found were the president and vice president of the organization. We were asked how long we had. With no need to rush, we were later thrilled to not have a time limit. We started with the video of the story of the museum, and within moments into the video, tears were beginning to flow. This powerful, yet highly unknown story is something that will be a forever core memory in our family. It was just us and our hosts, and I'm glad it was. Stories, tears, and laughs were shared by all. Truly a...

Fascinating museum that tells the story of children who were sent from New York to Louisiana (and other parts of the country) because they were orphans or their parents could not take care of them. The museum contains interesting artifacts from the children's lives, and has videos and texts in which the orphans, now adults, recount their life experiences. Despite the fact that thousands of children were part of this program, it is now an almost forgotten piece of history.

Highly recommended to visit, with exhibits that would be fun and interesting to both adults...