Louisiana State Exhibit Museum

The Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, located at 3015 Greenwood Road near the state fairgrounds in Shreveport in northwestern Louisiana, is housed in a neo-classical building completed in 1939 as one of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal public works projects. The entrance is adorned with frescoes by Conrad Albrizio (1894-1973). The round design of the building enhances the exhibits on the history and development of Louisiana. Twenty dioramas of H.B. Wright depict regional life and commerce. One of the artifacts is a cypress dugout dating to 1065 A.D. attributed to the Caddo Indians.^[1]

The dioramas focus on such diverse topics as rice harvesting, petroleum drilling, the Poverty Point State Historical Site in West Carroll Parish, archeology, the Battle of New Orleans, the Civil War migratory fowl, insects, salt domes, and the works by the African-American folk artist Clementine Hunter (c. 1886-1988) and Clyde Connell (1901-1998), a woman painter originally from Shreveport.

The museum director is Thomas Gaughan Carmody, Jr. (born, 1961), a Republican former state representative who was named in March 2020 by Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin. Carmody succeed another former representative, Wayne Waddell, who was removed as director by Ardoin. Carmody said he "appreciated that Wayne is no longer at the museum," noting that he remembers as a child taking field trips to the facility. Carmody said that he is excited to be working at the museum.^[2]

Prior to Waddell, another former state representative, Forrest Dunn, was the museum director.

The museum is open without charge on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. There is plentiful parking.

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