Plaquemine

Plaquemine is the seat of Iberville Parish in the River Parishes area of Louisiana.

Understand
The languid streets of this town hugging the Mississippi River seem to belie its booming entrepreneurial cotton market of the past, or the ugly race riot here of 1963 where white law enforcement descended upon a group of black protesters with horses and cattle prods, trying to root out a leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) named James Farmer. But it is a tranquil setting along the river, especially when visiting its main attraction, the Plaquemine Lock, and witnessing the grandeur of water and engineering.

Get in
Plaquemine sits along the Great River Road (in this case Hwy 1), and is an easy 15 mile drive south of Baton Rouge, just past the sprawling Dow Plant.