Ste. Geneviève National Historical Park
A living district of rare French colonial vertical-log houses that explains settlement, slavery, trade, and floodplain life along the Mississippi.
Artwork inspired by Frank Nuderscher
Ste. Geneviève preserves an unusually dense group of poteaux-en-terre and poteaux-sur-sole houses. National Park Service sites work alongside state, nonprofit, private, and lived-in properties, so the historic town is larger than one ticket.
Start at the NPS visitor center to learn which houses are open and how tours connect; building access changes by day and season. Leave time to walk between properties, because streets, lot lines, and the relationship to the Mississippi are part of the evidence.
- Type
- Preserved historic landscape
- Best start
- Visitor center
- Allow
- 2–4 hours
Quick guide
- Verify
- Tours and building access
- Read
- Landscape as evidence
Test the history against Ste. Geneviève National Historical Park
- Start at the NPS visitor center
- Ask which federally managed houses and tours are available that day, then use the answer to plan a walk that includes partners elsewhere in the historic district.
- Track ownership
- Distinguish NPS, state, nonprofit, private, and residential properties instead of assuming one admission or operating schedule covers the entire town.
- Read the construction
- Compare vertical posts set directly in earth with posts resting on a sill; that structural difference helps explain why the surviving French-colonial houses are exceptional.
- Read the town as evidence
- Use lot lines, streets, levees, gardens, and distance from the Mississippi to connect the houses with trade, agriculture, flooding, and everyday river life.
Good to know
Its rare vertical-log houses belong to a living town split among federal, state, nonprofit, private, and residential ownership—not one gated historical attraction.
Notice these
- Original or reconstructed structures
- Primary-source interpretation
- Historic landscape
- On-site context