Cane River Creole National Historical Park

Oakland Plantation

Gin Complex

Historic Structures Report

2004

Hartrampf, Inc.

and

Office of Jack Pyburn, Architect, Inc.

for 

Historical Architecture, Cultural Resources Division

Southeast Regional Office

National Park Service
Cultural Resources

Southeast Region

National Park Service

100 Alabama St. SW

Atlanta, GA 30303

(404) 562-3117

The historic structure report presented here exists in two formats. 

A traditional, printed version is available for study at the park, 

the Southeastern Regional Office of the NPS (SERO), and at a 

variety of other repositories. For more widespread access, the 

historic structure report also exists in a web-based format through 

ParkNet, the website of the National Park Service. Please visit 

www.nps.gov for more information.

2004

Historic Structures Report

Gin Complex

OaklandPlantation

Cane River Creole National Historical Park

Natchitoches, LA

LCS#: 100635

Cover image: Cover photograph, 2003




Table of Contents

Management Summary 

 Executive Summary 9 

 Administrative Data 13 

 

Part I: Developmental History 

A. Historical Time Line 17 

B. Historical Background and Context 19 

C. Chronology of Development and Use 29 

D. Physical Description 39 

E. Bibliography 57 

F. Drawings 59 

 

Part II: Treatment and Use 

A. Requirements for Use 71 

B. Requirements for Treatment 72 

C. Alternatives for Treatment 74 

D. Ultimate Treatment and Use 75 

 

Executive Summary 

National Park Service 9

Executive Summary 

The Gin Complex at Oakland Plantation, Cane River 

Creole National Historical Park, Natchez, Louisiana 

is a part of one of the most complete collections of 

plantation structures in the possession of the National 

Park Service. The National Park Service acquired the 

property in 1998. Of the original Gin Complex 

structures, only the Seed House and the Cistern 

remain, though remnants of the engine mounts for the 

steam and diesel engines that powered the cotton 

processing machinery during the productive life of 

the Gin Complex can be seen at the site. 

The Seed House was in an advanced state of decline 

at the time the National Park Service undertook 

stewardship of the site. The Park Service staff have 

since stabilized and rehabilitated the Seed House to 

facilitate converting it for use as a park maintenance 

facility. This report is intended to provide the 

historical background of the Gin Complex and the 

plantation that it served, to detail the existing 

condition of the remaining features and the probable 

configuration of those that are missing, and to 

provide recommendations for continued preservation 

and restoration of the Gin Complex features to enable 

the Park to make informed decisions regarding its use 

and maintenance. 

Historical Summary 

The major components of the Gin Complex at 

Oakland Plantation were first constructed between 

1859 and 1861. They consisted of the Gin Barn, the 

Engine Building, the Seed House, and the Cistern. 

The Gin Barn contained a gin stand and an indoor, 

iron screw, box bale press. The Engine Building 

housed the boiler and the steam engine used to power 

the machinery in the Gin Barn. The Seed House, 

originally smaller than it currently is, was used to 

house the seed by-product of the cotton ginning 

process. 

The Civil War brought few changes to the cotton 

processing procedure at the plantation. Shortly after 

the Civil War, a second gin stand was purchased, 

probably to augment the one already employed. The 

Gin Barn eventually contained two gin stands. By 

the 1890s, the Munger system of cotton processing 

had been invented and was employed by the 

Prud’hommes at Oakland Plantation. This required 

some changes to the structures of the Gin Complex. 

In addition to the new machinery in the Gin Barn, a 

seed-handling chute was installed from the Gin Barn 

to the Seed House. In the early 1920s, the steam 

engine was replaced with a diesel engine. This 

involved the addition of a new Engine Room to the 

west of the Gin Barn. It may have been at this time 

that a new, up-packing hydraulic press was installed 

in the Gin Barn and the Seed House was expanded. 

The steam engine and the Cistern were abandoned. 

In the early 1940s, the cotton crop was so poor that 

only seven bales of cotton were produced at Oakland 

Plantation. As a result, the ginning operations were 

closed. Thereafter, the Prudhommes took their cotton 

to the Starlight Plantation five miles away to have it 

ginned. The buildings fell into disrepair. At some 

point in the 1940s, the Gin Barn and Engine House 

were torn down, and the salvageable materials were 

reused to repair and rebuild other structures at 

Oakland Plantation. The equipment was either stored 

or sold. 

The National Park Service purchased 44 acres of 

Oakland Plantation in 1998 for use as a National 

Park. After the General Management Plan for the 

proposed park was drafted and the Seed House, the 

only remaining structure of the Gin Complex, was 

designated a maintenance facility, the Park staff 

undertook extensive repairs to the building. These 

repairs are largely complete, with only the addition of 

restroom and storage facilities and the installation of 

permanent water, sewer, and electrical facilities 

remaining to be finished. 

Architectural Summary 

The Seed House at Oakland Plantation, with the 

Cistern and engine mounts, is the last vestige of a 

once bustling ginning operation. The Gin Barn was 

located just south of the Seed House, near the 

Cistern. The steam engine and boiler are located on 

the far side of the Cistern. The steam engine was the 

earliest power source for the gin. Later, a diesel 

engine replaced the steam engine and was positioned 

west of the Gin Barn. The Gin Barn housed two 

ginning stands and was fitted with Munger pneumatic 

cotton and seed handling equipment. The Munger 

system, in addition to extracting cotton from wagons 

for ginning, distributed cotton to the gin stands. After 

ginning the cotton, the system sent processed cotton 

to the press and the seed byproduct to the Seed 

House. Significant components of the Munger system 

remain in storage at Oakland. 

The Cistern, located to the south of the Seed House, 

remains substantially intact. Its primary function was 
10 Oakland Gin HSR 

to provide water to the boiler. Its source of water, 

during the operation of the gin, was from the roof of 

the Gin Barn and Steam Engine House. Two sets of 

motor mounts remain on the site, the foundation for 

the steam engine to the south of the Cistern and the 

foundation for the diesel engine to the west of the 

Cistern. The mounts for the steam engine are 

masonry. The mounts for the diesel engine are 

concrete with brick chips as aggregate. This concrete 

dates to the dismantling of the boiler, which was 

located adjacent to the steam engine and covered in 

brick. The boiler was dismantled in the 1920s and 

the brick from the boiler shroud was reused in a 

variety of ways, including as aggregate for concrete 

used on the plantation. 

Much change has taken place in the vicinity of the 

Seed House and the larger Gin Complex site since the 

National Park Service (NPS) acquired the property. 

Utilities have been brought in to the west of the Seed 

House. An above-ground gas tank and gravel parking 

have been installed to the southwest and north of the 

building, respectively. The area of the Gin Barn is 

presently being used for open storage. Currently, an 

outside contractor to the National Park Service is 

constructing a road leading from the Highway 494 to 

the Seed House. 

The Seed House was in an advanced state of 

deterioration when the site was acquired by the 

National Park Service. In the General Management 

Plan, the proposed use of the structure was for 

“facility management”. According to current park 

staff, this use includes maintenance staff operations 

and light woodworking activities. 

The Seed House was constructed in two phases. The 

east and larger part of the existing structure was 

constructed first. This section of the building is a 

post-and-beam structure constructed from what 

appears to be recycled hewn timber material. Wire 

nails were the predominant method of attachment in 

the structure. However, larger, forged spikes were 

used at significant joints. No cut nails were observed. 

There are some interesting characteristics of the 

eastern section of the Seed House that deserve note. 

The floor of this section was originally designed to 

slope from the center to the outer walls on the long 

axis. It is thought by ginning experts and Prudhomme 

family members that this slope served to aid in 

distributing seed across the Seed House floor when 

blown in by the Munger system from the Gin House. 

The windows on the north and south sides of the 

Seed House were originally without frames or sashes 

but had bottom hinged shutters. The windows were 

used to control dust and, prior to the Munger system, 

to shovel seed into wagons from the north and south 

side of the Seed House. 

The western portion of the structure was a later 

addition. It is all circular sawn wood and primarily 

accommodates a seed chute. Based on the 

configuration of the chute and a single wood Munger 

seed handling pipe hanging at the edge of the chute, it 

is clear the western segment of the structure was an 

expansion associated with the installation of the 

Munger system. The purpose of this modification 

was to more efficiently accommodate the ginning of 

cotton for both tenant farmers and community 

farmers living beyond the bounds of Oakland 

Plantation. 

The Seed House has been altered considerably since 

its acquisition by the National Park Service. The 

building was stabilized by the reconstruction of all 

foundation piers. Where physically and structurally 

intact, existing beams and joists were retained, 

though supplemented in some areas to compensate 

for undersized historic members. 

Most of the modification is related to adapting the 

Seed House for facility operations occupancy as 

prescribed in the General Management Plan. This 

involved: 

• Removing the historic roofing, installing 

insulation and a waterproof membrane, and 

reinstalling the roofing in its historic location. 

• Insulating the walls behind and, in some cases, in 

front of the historic siding. This treatment 

necessitated the installation of new finish 

material on much of the interior of the structure. 

Where appropriate, the National Park Service 

used material of the same species and dimension 

as the historic material lost to deterioration. 

• Installing plywood flooring in lieu of the 4/4” 

floorboards that existed historically. 

• Installing a unisex restroom in the northwest 

corner of the structure and a storage room to the 

east of the restroom. These spaces were not 

constructed to the full height of the building in 

order to retain a sense of the historic volume. 

• Installing window frames, casement sashes and 

screens on the interior of the structure to provide 

light, as well as weather and insect protection. 

• Installing plywood doors as a temporary 

treatment. The remaining plans call for the doors 

to be of board and batten construction typical of 

the plantation. Only the east horizontal sliding 

door existed when the property was acquired by 

the National Park Service. 

In the long term, the General Management Plan 

designates the Seed House to be used for educational 

purposes. This use will support further interpretation 

of the seed handling operation of the Gin Complex as 

well as provide information about the Gin Barn and 

associated components of the complex. Every effort 
Executive Summary 

National Park Service 11

should be made to protect the remaining historic 

fabric and features of the Seed House. This will 

afford the maximum opportunity for accurate 

interpretation of the building, including the remaining 

components of the Munger system that are currently 

stored away from the Seed House. 

Structural Summary: The restoration and 

rehabilitation of the Seed House is substantially 

complete. The General Management Plan 

defines the Phase I use of the Seed House as a 

Park maintenance facility. Discussions with 

Park personnel indicate that, although the 

building currently houses some carpentry 

equipment such as a table saw as well as some 

stored materials, the main use of the building 

will be as an office and assembly area for 

maintenance personnel. However, the 

reconstruction of the floor framing of the 

building, which was accomplished by replacing 

in kind the deteriorated portions of the floor 

framing and adding some supplemental 

strengthening, does not meet current building 

codes for loads in offices. In Phase II, the Park 

Service plans to convert the space for use as an 

educational facility when it becomes inadequate 

as a maintenance facility. What type of 

educational facility this would be is unclear. The 

floor framing as it currently exists does not meet 

current building code requirements for assembly 

areas, 100 psf, which it would be required to do 

if visitors were allowed to enter the building 

unrestricted. However, the load requirement 

for a classroom, which would include students, 

chairs, and desks, is 40 psf, the load the floor 

framing system can currently withstand based 

on the computer-modeled structural analysis of 

the system. 

Two methods could be used to mitigate the problem 

of the floor framing not adhering to code with regard 

to the proposed uses of the Seed House as outlined in 

the General Management Plan. One is to strengthen 

the existing floor framing. This could be 

accomplished by strengthening it from below, or by 

adding an extra layer of plywood sheathing to 

strengthen it from above. It should be noted that 

much of the existing floor framing was installed 

between 1999 and 2002 by the National Park Service 

during rehabilitation efforts at the Seed House. 

Consequently, there is not a significant amount of 

remaining historic material in the floor framing 

system. Strengthening the floor framing from below 

would not result in any degradation of the existing 

visual presentation because all strengthening would 

be installed beneath the existing floor and would be, 

therefore, not visible to the casual observer. There 

would be some expense associated with this 

approach. Strengthening it from above by adding 

additional plywood sheathing would impact the 

visual presentation somewhat, but would be much 

less expensive than strengthening it from below. 

According to Park personnel, the addition of an extra 

layer of plywood sheathin on the floor is planned for 

the Seed House. Because adding an extra layer of 

plywood sheathing to the existing flooring is the 

simplest to execute, less expensive than adding extra 

strengethening from below, and already part of the 

rehabilitation plans of the National Park Service for 

the Seed House, this is the preferred alternative. 

However, if the National Park Service decides not to 

add this additional layer of plywood, the floor must 

be strengthened from below to accommodate the 

proposed use. 

The other method is to restrict the load on the floor 

framing. As it currently exists, the floor can 

withstand a load of 40 psf (pounds per square foot) 

based on the computer- modeled structural analysis 

of the framing. The code requirement for an office 

space is a load strength of 60 psf. To avoid 

strengthening the floor framing to meet current 

building codes, the Park must restrict the weight of 

stored materials and equipment to 40 psf. To do this, 

the Park will need to monitor the weight of items 

stored in the building as well as the weight and 

locations of office equipment such as desks, copiers, 

file cabinets, and lockers. 

When the Park converts the Seed House to an 

educational facility, the building code requirements 

for public assembly space (100 psf) or for classroom 

space (40 psf) will apply. Which load applies 

depends on the configuration of the educational 

function of the building, whether as an assembly area 

with rows of chairs or as a classroom with desks. 

However, in both cases, restricting the number of 

people in the building can eliminate the need to 

strengthen the floor framing. To avoid additional 

strengthening of the floor framing, the number of 

people in the building should be limited to one 

hundred people, assuming maintenance equipment 

and storage has been removed. 

This number would allow for the weight of folding 

chairs arranged for educational presentation 

purposes, or for desks and chairs arranged in rows, 

which, although weightier than simple rows of chairs, 

allows fewer people in the same area due to space 

restrictions. Park Service personnel would need to 

ensure that storage of educational equipment and 

supplies does not exceed 40 psf. If the floor framing 

is strengthened by the addition of another layer of 

plywood sheathing, the number of people that could 

be allowed in the building at one time could be raised 

to one hundred and fifty. It is unlikely that this 
12 Oakland Gin HSR 

building could physically accommodate one hundred 

and fifty people at one time, however. 

A third means of reconciling the strength of the 

existing floor framing with the use of the building 

would be to change the proposed use to one that does 

not exceed the limits of the floor framing, such as a 

classroom, with students, desks, and chairs. 

However, this approach would require that the Park 

locate the current maintenance facility elsewhere, as 

the required load capacity for offices (60 psf) exceeds 

the existing load capacity of the floor framing system 

(40 psf). 

Summary of Other Issues:It is not recommended that 

a permanent ramp be installed to facilitate 

handicapped access, as this will impact the historic 

presentation of the exterior of the Seed House and the 

Gin Complex as a whole. However, the Seed House 

could be made available for wheelchair access by the 

use of a portable access ramp. If a permanent ramp is 

desired, it should be located on the south side of the 

Seed House. Some historic components of the seed 

handling system still remain installed in the Seed 

House. It is recommended that these be retained and 

preserved and consideration be given to the 

reconstruction of as much of the seed-handling 

system as possible in the Seed House using existing 

stored materials supplemented by new construction. 

This would facilitate interpretation of the Seed House 

as it was originally used. Further archaeological 

investigation should be performed on the site. The 

foundations of the missing Gin Barn, Engine House, 

Boiler, Press, and Pit Scales could probably be 

discovered near the surface and should be excavated 

to further inform an understanding of the extent of 

these structures and their relationship to one another. 

The existing remnants, which include the Cistern, the 

engine mounts, and the various at-grade wall 

constructions and brick paving in the area of the Gin 

Barn should be preserved and maintained as part of 

the interpretive inventory of Oakland Plantation. 

Recommendations for Treatment and Use: 

• Preserve remaining historic features, including 

the east sliding door and hardware, the seed 

hopper and wood supply pipe, and the building’s 

remaining historic wood components, including 

the heavy timber frame and remnants of wood 

sheathing. 

• Relocate the facility maintenance operations to 

another locations better suited to its floor loading 

requirements. 

• Consider reinstallation and reconstruction of the 

Munger seed handling system for interpretive 

purposes. 

• Install an extra layer of 3⁄4” plywood flooring on 

top of the existing flooring, and restrict the 

number of people in the Seed House to one 

hundred and fifty people. 

• If handicapped access is desired, install either a 

permanent ramp or a moveable ramp so that it 

accesses the south side of the building rather 

than the east side. 

• Undertake further archaeological investigation at 

the site to attempt to uncover the foundations of 

the missing components of the Gin Complex, 

such as the Gin Barn, Engine Houses, Boiler, 

Press, and Pit Scales. 

Administrative Data 

Locational Data: 

Building Name: Seed House and Gin Complex 

 

Building Address 4386 Hwy. 494 

 Natchez, LA 71456 

 LCS # 91706 

 

Related Studies: 

Ford, Eric Z. Design Analysis – Rehabilitation of the 

Seed House for Adaptive Reuse, Oakland 

Plantation. National Park Service, U.S. 

Department of the Interior, 2001. 

Jones, Tommy. Gin Barn, The, Magnolia Plantation, 

Cane River Creole National Historical Park, 

Historic Structure Report. National Park 

Service Southeast Region Support Office, 

Atlanta, 2002. 

Keel, Bennie C., and Christina E. Miller, “Gabe 

Nargot’s Cabin – Investigations at a 

Nineteenth Century Slave Domicile in 

 Northwest Louisiana.” Paper presented at 

1999 Society for Historical Archaeology 

Conference, Salt Lake City. 

<http://www.cr.nps. 

 gov/seac/gabes/ Dec. 15, 2000>. 

Lawliss, L., C. Goetcheus, and D. Hasty, “The 

Cultural Landscape Inventory and 

Assessment, Cane River Creole National 

Heritage Area Natchitoches, Louisiana.” 

National Park Service Southeast Region 

Support Office, Atlanta. 1997. 

Miller, Christina E. and Susan E. Wood, Oakland 

Plantation – A Comprehensive Subsurface 

Investigation. Southeast Archaeological 
Executive Summary 

National Park Service 13

Center, Tallahassee. 2000. 

National Park Service. Cane River Creole National 

Historical Park, Draft General Management 

Plan/Environmental Impact Statement.

2000. 

Cultural Resource Data: 

National Register of Historic Places: The Jean 

Pierre Emmanuel Prud’homme Plantation (Oakland 

Plantation), historic structure, originally listed August 

29, 1979 (upgraded from local to statewide 

significance August 2, 1989) under Criterion A for 

association with events that have made a significant 

contribution to the broad patterns of our history. 

Period of Significance: The period of significance 

for Oakland Plantation begins with the founding of 

the plantation and concludes about 1960, around the 

time that the last of the sharecroppers and tenants 

were leaving the plantation. 

Proposed Treatment and Use: According to the 

National Park Service General Management Plan for 

this park, the Seed house is to be used as a 

maintenance facility for the park. Discussions with 

park personnel indicate that this does not include 

moving heavy equipment such as backhoes and 

tractors into the building, but does include storage of 

the materials used to rehabilitate the building and the 

use of light equipment such as band saws and drill 

presses.
14 Oakland Gin HSR 
National Park Service 15

PART I: DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY 
16 Oakland Gin HSR 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 17 

Historical Timeline 

1787 – Jean Pierre Emmanuel Prud’homme begins to 

farm lands along the Red (now Cane) River in 

Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana that would become 

Oakland Plantation. 

1790 – Introduction of cotton as a cash crop in 

Louisiana. 

1793 – Invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney. 

1796 – Henry Ogden Holmes granted a patent for a 

“saw-toothed” gin, an improvement on the Whitney 

gin. 

1799 – Whitney gins are first sold commercially. 

1815 – End of the War of 1812; beginning of a cotton 

boom in the Lower South. 

1836 – A contract is executed between William 

Miller and Lestan Prud’homme, Sr. to build “a gin 

house like Mr. Phanor Prud’homme’s new gin 

house.” 

1838 – Daniel Pratt begins to manufacture gins at 

Prattville, Alabama. 

1850 – Pierre Phanor Prud’homme purchases the 

Prud’homme plantation from his father’s estate. 

1850-1854 – Sometime during this period, Phanor 

Prud’homme installs a new, indoor, iron screw box 

press at one of the gin complexes at his plantation. 

1854 – Raynond, a slave at Prud’hommes’ Plantation, 

receives training from J.B. Clarkson at Union 

Plantation as a gin engineer (operator). Indicates 

either an existing or an impending steam-powered gin 

at Oakland Plantation. 

1856 – Phanor Prud’homme arranges with P.B. 

Plauche and Co., his agent in New Orleans, to insure 

his two gins. 

1857 – Phanor Prud’homme replaces a worn wooden 

screw of a screw press at one of his gins with a new 

one. 

1857 – Phanor Prud’homme installs a Pratt gin at 

Prud’hommes’ plantation. 

1859 – For insurance purposes, Phanor Prud’homme 

values his two gins at $1500 for “mill on the side of 

the house,” and $2000 for “mill on the side opposite 

the house,” plus the value of cotton at both gins. 

1859-1861 – Construction of New Gin, Engine 

Room, and Seed House on present site (only the Seed 

House survives). 

1861 – Civil War begins at Ft. Sumter, Charleston, 

South Carolina. 

1864 – Red River Campaign; destruction of gin. 

1865 – End of the Civil War. 

1867 – Gabe Nargot, gin engineer for Oakland 

Plantation born at Prud’hommes’ plantation. 

1873 – Formal division of the Prud’homme 

plantation results in Atahoe Plantation on the east 

side of Cane River and Oakland Plantation on the 

west side. 

1885 – Invention of the “Munger system” of ginning 

by Robert S. Munger. 

1885-1905 - Installation of this system at Oakland 

Plantation during this period probably prompted the 

expansion of the Seed House, which included the 

addition of a now-defunct seed pipe between the Gin 

Barn and the Seed House and the chute that still 

exists in the Seed House. 

1920s – Gin steam engine replaced with dieselpowered engine. 

1940/41 – “Bust” cotton crop. 

1941/42 – New Gin closes, never to re-open. 

1941-1957 – New Gin Barn torn down sometime 

during this period. 

1950 – End of sharecropping arrangements on 

Oakland Plantation. Afterward, the Prud’hommes 

hired only day laborers. 

1985 – Prud’hommes cease to farm and sell the 

majority of the farm equipment. 

1998 – National Park Service acquires 44 acres of 

Oakland Plantation for a proposed National Park, the 

Cane River Creole National Historical Park. 

1999 – National Park Service initiates stabilization 

and preservation measures for 

the Seed House. These measures included rebuilding 

the brick piers on concrete footings, replacing 

wooden grade-piers with new brick piers and 

footings, repairing or replacing some sill beams and 

floor joists, adding supplemental framing to level the 

floor, repairing the wall and roof framing systems, 
Historical Background and Context 

18 Oakland Gin HSR 

including some replacement of sheathing boards and 

rafters, reconstructing missing northwest and 

southwest lean-to roofs, and repairing the northeast 

lean-to roof. 

2002 – National Park Service is currently undertaking 

modifications to the interior of the Seed House that 

include installation of restrooms and storage areas. 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 19

Historical Background and Context 

No discussion of the dependent structures at what is 

now called Oakland Plantation can begin without first 

establishing, in brief, the background history of the 

plantation on which they stand and the people that 

erected them and put them to use. Much has been 

written regarding the Natchitoches Prud’homme 

family. They were among the first families of 

Louisiana when the territory belonged to the French. 

They continued to be one of the prominent families 

of the area through the subsequent occupation of the 

Spanish, the re-establishment of French control, and 

the acquisition of the territory by the United States 

government. The Prud’hommes established a 

successful agricultural enterprise and prospered 

despite the vicissitudes of economic forces and 

national politics. Two hundred years after the 

establishment of their plantation along the Cane 

River, they sold an important part of it to the National 

Park Service to establish a park that would serve to 

educate the public and preserve the remnants of a 

vanished way of life and a significant part of the 

nation’s history. 

The existing Seed House and the site of what was 

known to the Prud’hommes and their workers as the 

New Gin are an important part of that remnant. Farm 

records show the construction of a Gin Barn, Engine 

House, and Cistern on this site in 1859 through 1860. 

Work on a Seed House appears in records for 1861,1

but it is not certain that this refers to the Seed House 

that currently exists at the site of the New Gin. This 

report explores the background history of the 

Prud’hommes’ cotton plantation, the construction of 

the New Gin, and the modifications to both as times 

and technology changed. 

By 1758, Jean-Baptist Prud’homme had acquired 

land along what was then called the Red River and 

begun to farm it. According to family tradition, his 

oldest son, Jean Pierre Emmanuel, was farming land 

that would become Oakland Plantation by 1787, 

though his residence in the early 1790s was still on a 

51-acre tract opposite the post at Natchitoches. 

However, by the late 1790s, Emmanuel Prud’homme 

had purchased that property from Nicholas Rousseau, 

the original owner, and built a home on the banks of 

the river.2

 Here, Emmanuel Prud’homme and his 

workers raised first indigo and tobacco and, later, 

cotton. 

 

1

 Anne Patton Malone, “Oakland Plantation, Its People’s 

Testimony,” unpublished MS, National Park Service, 1998, 

p. 62. 

2 Ibid., pp 24-26. 

There is a tradition among the Prud’hommes that 

Emmanuel was the first to bring cotton production to 

the area on a large scale. Though cotton was 

introduced into the region about 1790, the invention 

of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 made the 

processing of large amounts of cotton feasible and 

promoted the adoption of cotton as the pre-eminent 

crop in Louisiana.3

 However, the invention was not 

initially available for the planter to purchase. 

Whitney’s original plan was not to sell the machines 

themselves but to sell the services of the machines for 

a part of the ginned crop, about 40 percent. This plan 

did not succeed because planters objected to what 

they considered the exorbitant rate charged by the 

ginner and instigated attempts to steal the designs for 

the gins and build their own. It was not until 1799 

that planters were able to buy Whitney gins for their 

own plantations.4

 During the 1790s, cotton was 

doubtless ginned by hand on the Prud’hommes’ 

plantation, but Emmanuel Prud’homme probably 

purchased a mechanical gin as soon as possible. By 

1803, cotton had largely replaced tobacco as the 

primary cash crop in the Natchitoches area.5

After the War of 1812 ended in 1815, the production 

of cotton became increasingly profitable, as the price 

per bale increased. The average price for cotton in 

1815 was an almost unbelievably high 29.4 cents per 

pound. By 1817, it had peaked at 33.9 cents per 

pound.6

 The cotton boom in the area led to an 

increase in production by the large plantation owners, 

and the resulting affluence produced the legendary 

culture and society of the antebellum South. As 

historian Anne Malone points out, this increased 

prosperity resulted in the building of “bigger and 

more luxurious houses, barns, stables, and 

quarters....”7

The production of cotton on the Cane River 

plantations was greatly facilitated by the excellence 

and depth of the soil, the result of centuries of 

flooding cycles. However, the vicissitudes of 

weather tempered the output. In 1836, it appears that 

Prud’hommes’ plantation produced more than 990 

bales of cotton (based on the weight of picked cotton 

recorded by the overseer – prior to the Civil War, a 

 

3

 Ibid., pp. 31-32. 4

 Karen Gerheardt Britton. Bale o’Cotton, The Mechanical Art 

of Cotton Ginning, Texas A&M University Press, College 

Station, 1992. pp. 17-19. 

5

 Caroline Breedlove. “Bermuda/Oakland Plantation, 1830-

1880.” Unpublished masters thesis. Northwestern State 

University of Louisiana, Natchitoches 1999. p. 54. 

6

 Malone, pp. 36-41. 7

 Ibid., p. 48. 
Historical Background and Context 

20 Oakland Gin HSR 

400-pound bale was standard). The drought of 1838 

resulted in only 327 bales. In 1850, only 210 bales 

were produced, but the inventory of Lise 

Prud’homme’s succession in 1853 showed 500 bales.

In 1860, Prud’hommes’ plantation produced 628 

bales in spite of a severe drought that destroyed much 

of the cotton crop in north central Louisiana.8

Before the Civil War, cotton was hand-picked by 

slave laborers at the Prud’hommes’ plantation. The 

workers hauled woven baskets or sacks of heavy 

cotton duck between the rows to hold the cotton they 

picked. Some of the stronger men used a sack twelve 

feet long. A sack of cotton could weigh up to 300 

pounds, depending on the size of the sack, the length 

of the rows being picked, the quality of the cotton 

crop, and the distance to the weigh station located in 

the cotton field.9

 The plantation overseer recorded 

the amounts picked for each worker. For instance, in 

October of 1836, “the overseer Culbertson recorded 

women like Big Liza, ‘Sucky,’ Betsy, and ‘Tonet’ as 

having picked 200 pounds or more, keeping pace 

with Charles, Lewis, Phil, and Alexan.... Again in 

1860, on August 22, when four men were able to pick 

over 300 pounds, so too did two of the women, with 

another two picking 280 and 285.”10 This was not 

the norm, however. The general wisdom was that a 

man could pick between two hundred and four 

hundred pounds of cotton a day. A woman could 

pick one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five 

pounds, with one hundred and fifty pounds being the 

maximum one could expect of women workers. 

 

8

 Breedlove, pp. 55-56. 

9

 Kenneth Prudhomme to Ann Patton Malone, oral interview, 

11 March 1997. Transcript, pp. 13-14. 

10 Breedlove, pp. 89-90. 

Pregnant women or nursing mothers could not be 

expected to pick more than a child could normally 

pick. Children, who were sent to pick cotton as early 

as eight years of age, could be expected to pick thirty 

to forty pounds per day.11 When the container was 

full, or the worker could no longer drag it along, the 

cotton was weighed on the field scales and emptied 

into a wagon. Workers driving wagons pulled by 

mules transported the cotton to the gin for 

processing.12 One wagon-load generally equaled one 

bale of cotton.13

Picking, ginning, and pressing, or baling, of cotton 

were performed simultaneously. As enough picked 

cotton was accumulated, it was ginned and baled. 

The work started in late August and picking usually 

finished by the end of the year. Sometimes, however, 

depending on weather, workers were still picking 

cotton in February.14 The fields were usually picked 

more than once because the bolls did not all ripen at 

the same time. Ginning often did not end until 

March, the start of the planting season for the next 

crop of cotton.15

The heart of the cotton plantation was the cotton gin. 

The term “cotton gin” had two meanings. Used 

generally, it meant the entire facility that processed 

cotton. This included the cotton ginning machine, 

the cotton press, the buildings that housed the 

machinery and stored the raw materials and finished 

product, and the supporting machinery and 

constructions, such as the devices, both manual and 

mechanical, that powered the machinery, the cistern, 

and the systems used to transport materials from 

place to place. Used specifically, it referred to the 

machine that separated the cotton fibers from the 

seeds by pulling the cotton fibers apart with combs 

mounted on revolving cylinders, also called a “gin 

stand.” By 1836, “a belt-driven gin stand...must 

have stood upon the left bank”16 (opposite the Main 

House side of the Cane River). In 1850, when 

Phanor Prud’homme purchased the plantation from 

his father’s estate, there were two gins, one on each 

side of the river, to facilitate ginning on both portions 

of the plantation without having to haul cotton across 

the river.17 At that time, there was no bridge, though 

there is evidence that they used or built “pontoon 

bridges” to cross from one side to the other. Before 

1850, the gins were apparently powered manually, 

but, by 1854, at least one of the gins was converted to 

 

11 John Batten, to Ann Patton Malone in oral interview, 20 

April 1997, transcript, p. 34. 

12 Prudhomme, Kenneth, 11 March 1997. pp. 13-15. 13 Britton, p. 24. 14 Prudhomme, Kenneth, 11 March 1997. p. 16. 15 Britton, p. 27. 16 Breedlove, p 76. 17 Numerous references exist in the plantation records to “gin 

this side” and “gin other side,” indicating a gin located on 

each side of the river. 

Figure 1. Model of Whitney gin, ca. 1800. (from 

Bale o' Cotton by Britton) 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 21

steam.18 From Phanor’s correspondence, this appears 

to have been the gin on the side of the river opposite 

the Main House.19

In addition to the gin machinery, each plantation gin 

complex included a bale press. By the 1830s, 

wooden screw presses were widely used throughout 

the South, usually powered by draft animals. In the 

fall of 1838, Phanor Prud’homme made reference to 

the six mules and six horses then powering the 

Prud’hommes’ press.20 At that time, the cotton press 

was usually housed in a free-standing structure 

adjacent, but not attached, to the gin building. This 

arrangement was inherently inefficient, especially 

during inclement weather. 

The steam-powered cotton gin, which included both 

the gin and pressing machinery as well as facilities 

for housing the machinery and for the storage of 

cotton, was an industrial enterprise. It was marked 

by a tall chimney of brick or sheet metal emitting 

steam or smoke, several buildings of brick or wood, 

the screeching sound of the cotton press, and the 

smells of lubricating grease and hot metal machinery 

parts. 21 This is a far cry from the bucolic landscape 

generally envisioned as the “southern plantation.” 

Operation of the gin required specialized knowledge. 

The Prud’hommes appear to have usually entrusted 

the operation of the gin to members of their work 

force. Between 1840 and 1860, a slave known as 

Arsen, or “Big Belly” was a gin operator.22 He was 

probably operating the mule-driven gin. In 1854, one 

of the plantation workers, Raynond, was receiving 

training from John B. Clarkson of Union Plantation 

to run the new steam-powered gin.23 

Cotton prices were high in the 1850s.24 It was a time 

of optimism and expansion for the planters on Cane 

River. Phanor Prud’homme embarked on a number of 

construction projects intended to improve the 

plantation operations. Improvements to the ginning 

operations were among them. By the 1850s, presses 

that allowed for indoor operation were being 

patented. The advertisement of James L. McComb of 

Raymond, Mississippi for an indoor press that he had 

developed attracted the attention of Phanor 

Prud’homme, who wrote to him inquiring about it.25 

 

18 Malone, p. 76. 19 Ian Firth, “Cultural Landscape Report – Oakland 

Plantation,” draft manuscript, n.d., n.p. 

20 Ibid. 21 Breedlove, p. 77. 22 Malone, pp. 74-75. 23 Ibid., p. 76. 24 Ibid., pp. 49-50. 25 Phanor Prud’homme, letter to J. McComb, October 7, 

1850, Series 3.1.1, folder 143, Prud’homme Collection #613, 

Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina 

at Chapel Hill, NC. 

By 1854, he had purchased and installed one of these 

presses, an iron screw box press, to replace one of the 

wooden presses.26 This necessitated the construction 

of a new Gin Barn to house the indoor press 

operation in the same building as the gin operation. 

The combination of these operations in one building 

was a great step forward for the typical plantation 

because it allowed work to continue even in 

inclement weather. Farm journals record the 

installation of a Pratt’s Gin in January of 1857. On 

the 26th of January, the plantation overseer, Seneca 

Pace, sent “5 men, 1 cart” to pick up the gin stand.27 

The following day, the gin stand was installed, and, 

on the 29th of the month, the gin was started at 10 in 

the morning. It may have been powered by the new 

steam engine purchased by Phanor and run by the 

slave, Raynond, who had been trained in “gin 

engineering” in 1854. If so, the new Pratt’s gin was 

installed in the gin on the other side of the river from 

the Main House.28 Pace reported that the gin 

“performed well.”29 From April to July, timber was 

accumulated for the construction of gin buildings, 

and the buildings were begun at the end of July. Pace 

documented the progress and problems experienced 

in processing the cotton that year on both sides of the 

river. The problems were largely due to rainy 

weather, wet cotton, and a press in need of repair on 

 

26 Firth, n.p. 27 Seneca Pace, 1857 Overseer’s Farm Journal, 

Prud’homme Collection #613, Southern Historical Collection, 

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, n.p. 

28 Firth, n.p. 29 Pace, n.p. 

Figure 2. Phanor Prud'homme apparently installed an 

indoor press such as this at Oakland in the 1850s. (from 

The Southern Cultivator, July 1850) 
Historical Background and Context 

22 Oakland Gin HSR 

the Main House side of the river.30

The plantation operated two gins throughout the 

1850s. “In 1856, Phanor noted in his Journal that he 

had arranged for P. B. Plauche and Co., his agent in 

New Orleans, to insure his two gins. Two years later, 

when renewing his insurance, he valued the gins as 

follows. ‘The mill on the side of the house for the 

sum of $1500 plus the value of 75 of picked and 

cleaned cotton. The mill on the side opposite the 

house is run by steam. You insured the steam engine 

for the sum of $2000. The cotton mill for the sum of 

$2000 and for the value of one hundred bales of 

picked and cleaned cotton...”31 However, by 1859, 

the construction of another gin and associated 

buildings was underway. 

This new gin was located in a field south of the 

Overseer’s House and west of the Quarters. By the 

end of 1860, Prud’hommes had three gins, one across 

the river, and two on the Main House side. The 

existence of several gins is documented in numerous 

references in the 1860 farm records. “For example, a 

January 14, 1860 reference by overseer Seneca Pace 

stated that cotton was hauled from the ‘new gin’ to 

the ‘mule gin,’.... An entry for January 15, 1861 

mentions moving cotton bales ‘from gin to old gin.’ 

And a February 16 [entry] mentions moving cotton 

from gin to old gin ‘for shipping’ (presumably 

because the old gin was close to the river). These are 

among many such references in the journals during 

the 1860s which indicate that the Old Gin and the 

New Gin existed at the same time.”32 However, not 

all of these gin buildings may have contained gin 

equipment. There is evidence in the farm records for 

the plantation that only two gins at a time contained 

gin equipment.33

 

30 Ibid. 31 Firth, n.p. 32 Malone, pp. 60-62. 33 Ian Firth, Professor, School of Environmental Design, 

University of Georgia at Athens, Georgia, to Deborah 

Harvey, oral interview, 9 Sep 2002. This information is 

The gin complex built in 1859 through 1861 

consisted of a Gin Barn, a Seed House, and an 

Engine Building to house the boiler and steam engine 

used to run the gin. Between the Gin Barn and the 

Engine Building was a Cistern where water was 

accumulated to power the steam engine since the new 

gin was too far from the river to use the river water to 

supply water for the steam engine. The Gin Barn 

contained the gin stand and the indoor press 

equipment, both of which had been painstakingly 

hauled across the river from the gin on the other 

side.34 On the eve of the Civil War, the 

Prud’hommes had two gins in operation on the 

plantation, at least one of them steam-powered, and 

both on the same side of the river as the Main House. 

If the Civil War had not intervened, they were poised 

to produce more cotton than ever before. 

When the war broke out, the Prud’homme sons, 

Jacques Alphonse and Pierre Emmanuel II, enlisted 

in the Confederate Army.35 In March of 1862, 

Alphonse was wounded. He was discharged from his 

unit and sent home to recuperate. He remained at the 

Prud’hommes’ plantation until July of that year, 

when he and his brother-in-law, Winter Breazeale, 

recruited five companies of cavalry and set off in 

September to rejoin the war. However, in April of 

1863, Alphonse was again wounded and obliged to 

return home to recuperate. By June of that year, he 

felt recovered enough to rejoin his unit. Still, he was 

mustered out of his unit in July of 1864 because of 

disability from the wounds that he had received and 

from which he had never properly recovered.36

Unable to continue as a soldier, Alphonse 

Prud’homme set about assisting his father, Phanor, 

with the management of the plantation. This was no 

small task, as the war had at last overrun “la Cote 

Joyeuse.”37 The defeat of the Federal army at the 

battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, north of 

Natchitoches, resulted in a retreat that led the Federal 

troops down the Cane (formerly, Red) River. 

 

based on his research for the National Park Service in the 

Prud’homme papers held at the University of North Carolina 

at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

34 Firth, n.p. 35 Breedlove, pp. 24-26. 36 Alcee Fortier, ed., “Jacques Alphonse Prud’homme,” 

Louisiana, Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, 

Events, Institutions, and Persons Arranged in Cyclopedic 

Form, Southern Historical Association, Atlanta, 1909, no 

page numbers. 

37 The name given to the Cane River Country by other 

Louisianans in the early 1800s. See DeBlieux, Robert B., 

Cane River Country, “La Cote Joyeuse” and Kisatchie 

National Forest – An Auto Guide to the Historically and 

Architecturally Important Plantations of Creole Origins and a 

Guide to the Vistas, Hiking Trails and Flora of the Forest of 

Natchitoches Parish, The Natchitoches Times, Natchitoches, 

1993, p. 3. 

Figure 3. Pratt's farm gin, ca. 1844. (from Bale o' 

Cotton by Britton) 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 23

Because the war made it impossible for Phanor 

Prud’homme to market his cotton, he was apparently 

storing it in an old gin near the river. Sometime 

during the Red River Campaign, the old gin was 

burned to the ground. Prud’homme family legend 

ascribes this event to the activities of the Federal 

troops.38 Though they lost virtually all of their cotton 

to fire (only four bales escaped the blaze), and the old 

gin was destroyed,39 the Prud’hommes were among 

the lucky. Unlike Magnolia Plantation, where the 

Main House was consumed by fire,40 neither the 

Main House of the Prud’homme plantation nor most 

of the outbuildings were harmed during the retreat. 

Family tradition attributes this good fortune to the 

story that “faithful slaves begged the yankees [sic] 

not to burn the home.”41 Fortunately, the rest of the 

war was short. In May of 1865, the last of the 

Confederate Army surrendered. 

Emmanuel Prud’homme II returned home to the 

plantation, and he and Alphonse undertook its 

management. Their father, Pierre Phanor, weakened 

by the demands of war, retired to the Lecomtes’ 

townhouse in Natchitoches where he died on October 

12, 1865.42 His heirs, the Prud’homme brothers, and 

their families worked together to rebuild their lives. 

Cotton continued to be the important cash crop for 

the plantation. In 1865, the price of cotton was 

posted at forty-one cents per pound, more than twice 

the price in 1863.43 The Prud’hommes were 

fortunate in that, although their crop for 1864 had 

been destroyed, at least one gin with engine house 

and seed barn remained to them. Only the Old Gin 

near the river had burned, apparently leaving the New 

Gin largely intact. Still, in 1865, Phanor was able to 

plant only enough cotton to realize 21 bales at the 

end of the season.44

It appears that, though Prud’homme family legend 

states that the Federal troops burned only the old gin, 

they may have done some damage to another gin as 

well. Alphonse Prud’homme records in his journal 

that the steamer Caddo delivered a gin stand on the 

11th of April of 1866. As there is no record of the 

 

38 This traditional family story ignores the implication that 

Phanor had not followed the orders of the Confederate 

Commander in the area to burn all stored cotton before the 

Federal forces could get it, which, considering his devotion 

to the Confederate cause, seems uncharacteristic. 39 Breedlove, p. 36. 40 Ibid., p. 37. 41 DeBlieux, 1993, p. 21. 42 Lucile K. Prudhomme, “The Prud’homme Family”, 

unpublished genealogical information on the descendants of 

Jean Pierre Phillipe Prud’homme, p. 3. Also see Melrose 

Collection, Scrapbook 256, Cammie Henry Research 

Center, Northwestern University, Natchitoches, Louisiana, 

for Phanor Prud’homme’s obituary. 

43 Breedlove, pp. 56-57. 44 Ibid., p. 57. 

construction of a gin after that of the New Gin, it may 

be inferred that this gin stand was intended to replace 

or augment one already in use. Prior to ginning 

season in 1866, it was apparently discovered that the 

press did not work and repairs were undertaken. In 

August, partially-ginned cotton had to be hauled to 

“town” (presumably, Natchitoches) to be pressed.45 

Farm records show that repairs were not begun until 

the middle of September of that year, when ginning 

season had normally begun. It can, therefore, be 

assumed that this problem was not anticipated until it 

was discovered just prior to the ginning season. As a 

result, Alphonse records storing cotton in “the 

hospital” and the corn crib until it could be ginned 

and pressed. In his journal, he complains that he has 

been “thrown back one month on account of [the] 

press.”46

Arranging for labor was probably the biggest 

difficulty faced by the South after the Civil War. 

Both former slaves and former masters were 

unaccustomed to dealing with the intricacies of labor 

negotiations on a paid-labor basis. Additionally, 

former slaves were not prepared, in many cases, to 

determine and meet their own needs for shelter, food, 

clothing, and medical care, commodities formerly 

supplied by the planters. The Cane River planters 

and their former slaves probably fared better than 

many in other areas of the South in this regard. By 

the mid-1800s, the slave population of the Cane 

River area was largely self-reproducing, and the sale 

or transfer of slaves was infrequent and usually did 

not involve long distances.47 Thus, the families of 

freed people in Louisiana may have been more intact 

after the Civil War than those of other regions and 

better able to maintain a cohesion lacking among 

members of the families of freed people in other 

states. Most former slaves in the area had roots 

extending back nearly as far as their former owners, 

with a large kinship network reaching throughout 

many plantations in the area.48 This may account for 

the remarkably stable workforce available to the 

Prud’hommes in the years immediately following the 

Civil War. 

Both during and after the Civil War, some workers 

did leave the plantations they had formerly served. 

However, people from other states moved to the area, 

some looking for lost relatives and others simply 

looking for work. New laws required that planters 

negotiate and sign yearly labor contracts with their 

 

45 Alphonse Prud’homme, farm journal, 11 April 1866 

through 12 November 1866 documents repairs to press. 

Series 3.1.5, folder 271, Prud’homme Collection #613, 

Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina 

at Chapel Hill, N.C. 

46 Prud’homme, Alphonse, n.p. 47 Breedlove, p. 79-80. 48 Ibid., pp. 78-79. 
Historical Background and Context 

24 Oakland Gin HSR 

workers. Yearly contracts began on January 4, and 

monthly wages ranged from $4 to $10. Nursing 

mothers received half pay. Working days per month 

ranged between 22 days and 25 days.49 In addition, 

the Prud’hommes provided shelter and, apparently, 

some food rations as they had done for their workers 

prior to the Civil War. It is in the 1866 account 

ledgers relating to the payment of workers with 

newly-acquired surnames that a name first appears 

that is inextricably linked with the Gin Complex at 

Oakland Plantation: Nargot. Derzilin and Marie 

Nagot [sic] are listed among those who signed a 

yearly contract to work for the Prud’hommes in 

1866.50 They were the parents of Gabriel “Gabe” 

Nargot, born in October of 1867, the gin engineer 

most closely associated with post-bellum Oakland 

Plantation. 

Derzilin Nagot negotiated another contract to work 

for the Prud’hommes for a monthly wage again in 

1867, but, in 1868, the “labor arrangements began to 

shift somewhat” from simple paid wages to labor for 

a share in the crop.51 This signaled the beginning of 

sharecropping as a means of contracting for 

agricultural labor on the Cane River plantations. 

Under sharecropping arrangements, the landlord 

furnished the land and the seed, and the worker 

furnished the labor and, in some cases, equipment to 

raise the crop. The crop produced was then divided 

between the landlord and the worker according to an 

established method. Workers who worked “half-

 

49 Malone, pp. 114-115. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 

shares,” also known as “half-hands,” provided only 

the labor, with the landlord furnishing land, 

materials, and equipment for the raising of the crop. 

In exchange, the landlord received half of the 

proceeds of the crop raised by the worker. Workers 

who also provided equipment such as their own 

mules and plows to work the crop were working 

under a “quarter-share” arrangement. The landlord 

received only a quarter of the proceeds of the crop 

because the landlord provided only the land and seed, 

with the worker furnishing labor and equipment. 

As the Cane River planters and their workers made 

the transition from forced slave labor to free paid 

labor, overall production of cotton declined until the 

1880s. Labor problems were partly to blame, but 

floods and caterpillars took their toll as well.52 Year 

to year, production was uneven. Cotton production at 

Prud’hommes’ plantation in1866 and 1868 was more 

than 100 bales, though 1867 produced only seven 

bales due to severe flooding in the area. In 1870, the 

Prud’hommes produced a total of 133 bales, but 1878 

saw only twelve.53 These figures were a far cry from 

the more than 600 bales produced in 1860. 

After the settlement of Pierre Phanor Prud’homme’s 

estate, the Prud’hommes’ plantation was formally 

divided between J. Alphonse Prud’homme and Pierre 

Emmanuel Prud’homme in 1870. Pierre Emmanuel 

Prud’homme moved his family across the Cane River 

to his portion, which he renamed Atahoe Plantation. 

J. Alphonse Prud’homme renamed the portion that 

remained to him Oakland Plantation. Hereafter, it is 

the portion of the Prud’hommes’ plantation that was 

named Oakland with which this report is concerned. 

Between 1883 and 1885, Robert S. Munger invented 

the Munger ginning system, a system still in use 

today. According to Britton, “Robert Munger 

completely reorganized the hundred-year-old 

tradition of plantation ginning. His concept was to 

automate the process, eliminating as much of the 

hand labor as possible....”54 Using a pneumatic 

system, seed cotton was drawn out of wagons or 

compartments within the gin barn and conveyed to a 

separator mounted above the gin stands. The cotton 

then dropped to a conveyor belt that distributed it to 

feeders above each stand. Using this method, several 

gin stands could be linked, resulting in a series of 

gins to which cotton continually flowed. All the gins 

were connected to a common flue. The cotton that 

had been separated from its seeds, known as lint, was 

then blown through the flue to a condenser. The 

condenser consisted of a screen drum against which 

the cotton was collected, forming a batt, while dust 

and fine particles were blown out of the building 

through chimney stacks passing through the roof. 

 

52 Malone, p. 93. 53 Breedlove, pp. 57-58. The figure for 1878 is for the 

Oakland Plantation alone. 

54 Britton, pp. 58-59. 

Figure 4. Prud'hommes with a bale of cotton, ca. 1905. 

(Photograph courtesy of Northwestern State University 

of Louisiana, Watson Memorial Library, Cammie G. 

Henry Research Center, Henley Hunter collection) 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 25

Figure 5. Seed House, c. 1905.(Photograph courtesy 

of Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Watson 

Memorial Library, Cammie G. Henry Research Center, 

Henley Hunter collection) 

The separated seeds were blown through another flue 

to a seed house for storage. The lint slid along a 

slanting chute from the condenser to the press.55 This 

new system revolutionized and revitalized the cotton 

industry. For those who could afford to install a 

Munger system, it reduced the number of workers 

required at the gin to produce a bale of cotton. In 

concert with other innovations to the press 

equipment, such as the double press box, it produced 

bales of cotton faster. The result was that, as 

producing a bale of cotton became less laborintensive, it also became less expensive and more 

profitable. It is probable that the Prud’hommes 

installed such a system by 1890. 

Other labor-saving methods were introduced into the 

production of cotton at Oakland Plantation. 

According to Kenneth Prudhomme, instead of 

emptying the filled cotton sacks directly into a wagon 

that, when loaded, immediately took the cotton to the 

gin for processing, the cotton was dumped on a 

10’x10’ burlap sheet in the field. The sheet was 

rolled, tied, and turned over to protect it from the rain 

until it could be taken to the gin. Between six and 

eight of these bundles made up a bale of cotton, 

depending on how tightly they were bundled. At 

intervals, a wagon was driven around to the various 

fields, and the bundled cotton was loaded into the 

wagon. The wagon was compartmented, and each 

compartment was assigned to a worker so that the 

Prud’homme’s could track the production of each 

sharecropper. When the wagon was full, the cotton 

was taken to the gin to be baled. Kenneth 

Prudhomme remembered that their wagon held 

enough cotton for three bales.56 This method was 

less labor-intensive, as it did not require the 

continuous attendance of a wagon team in each field. 

In addition to ginning cotton from their own 

plantation, the Prud’hommes provided ginning 

service for neighbors. “Ginning record books for the 

1890s show that many area planters used the Oakland 

gin and that many former slaves [of the 

Prud’hommes’ plantation] either worked for Oakland 

or on neighboring plantations.”57 Some of the former 

Prud’homme slaves who brought cotton to the 

Prud’hommes’ gin after the Civil War were the 

Helaires, the Lewises, the Jean Baptistes, the 

Plaisances, the Edmonds, and the Honores.58 In 

1913, Edward C. Prud’homme entered a notation in 

his journal that is not dated, but probably was made 

in late November or early December, “Ginning today 

– yard crowded with wagons.” In mid-December, he 

predicts a finish to ginning within a week, and notes 

 

55 Ibid., pp. 59-60. 56 Prud’homme, Kenneth, to Ann Malone, 11 March 1997, 

pp. 15-16. 

57 Malone, p. 110. 58 Ibid., p. 109. 

that “c/seed @ 12.00 here per ton, remarkably low 

price.”59

Labor arrangements at the plantations along Cane 

River continued to fluctuate. As increased 

mechanization made fewer laborers necessary to the 

plantation owners, more of the tenant farmers were 

obliged to turn elsewhere for jobs. Some did not 

change occupations, and many did not leave the area, 

but sharecropping families frequently moved to other 

plantations in search of better opportunities. By 

1900, the sons of Derzilin Nargot, Gabe, Janvier, 

Severin, and Dersilin, Jr., had moved across the river 

to work.60 From their positions along the river, it is 

possible to extrapolate for whom they were working 

at the time. Severin Nargot is listed in the vicinity of 

the Widow Cloutier’s property. Janvier appears to be 

living on the property of Alex Cloutier. Dersilin, Jr. 

is located between Emmanuel and Narcisse 

Prud’homme, and Gabe, with a wife and two 

daughters, is living between the farms of Narcisse 

and Theophile Prud’homme.61 Kenneth Prud’homme 

stated in an interview with Ann Malone that hands 

generally lived within walking distances of their 

allotted farmland. This was especially true if they 

were on “half-shares,” which meant that they had to 

retrieve work animals from the landlord on a daily 

 

59 Ibid., p. 135. 60 Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900 Population 

Schedule, Natchitoches Parish, LA, reviewed online at 

Ancestry.com, 2002, images 27-35 of 66. 

61 Ibid.
Historical Background and Context 

26 Oakland Gin HSR 

basis and return them at the end of the day. This 

observation would indicate that the Nargots were 

living near the lands that they farmed and near the 

landowners for whom they worked. Gabe Nargot’s 

location in 1900 indicates that he may have not yet 

been trained to run the gin for Oakland Plantation. 

However, by 1910, it appears that Gabe was back at 

Oakland. Edward Carrington Prud’homme noted in 

his journal on March 27, 1910, that Gabe Nargot had 

not yet begun to plant his cotton, though that planted 

by Frank Helaire was already sprouting.62

Many of the descendants of former Oakland slaves 

were employed in one way or another at the gin and 

press. The Helaire family, which by 1910, had been 

associated with that of the Prud’hommes for 100 

years, was a mainstay of the workforce. “Charley 

Helaire hauled wood for the gin and installed a press 

there. Felix Helaire worked at the press, the gin, on 

the bridge, drove wagons, repaired the pigeon 

house...”63 However, the worker most closely 

associated with the gin operations at Oakland during 

the twentieth century was Gabe Nargot. 

Ann Malone provided some background information 

on the Nargot family. “The Nargo family (variously 

spelled in the records as Argo, Nago, Nagar, Nagot, 

and Nargot) has...had a long association with 

Bermuda-Oakland. The earliest known progenitor of 

this family is Barbe, who was still alive on Oakland 

in 1870 at the age of eighty, residing in the household 

of her son, Dersilin (Derzilin) Nargo and his family. 

Her birthplace in the 1870 census is recorded as 

Africa, where she was born about 1790. Barrbe [sic] 

was probably transported to America by slavers while 

in her early teens for on December 7, 1809, she was 

nineteen and already in the possession of Emmanuel 

Prudhomme at Bermuda. She was among twentytwo Prudhomme slaves who were baptized in the 

Catholic faith at the plantation on that occasion.”64

Gabe Nargot, grandson of Barbe, was the gin 

engineer for Oakland plantation in the 1920s to the 

early 1940s. His tenure as gin engineer doubtless 

ended when the gin was permanently closed in 1941 

or 1942. The ruins of the cabin he occupied during 

this time are located in the old Quarters, southeast of 

the Overseer’s house. The older Prud’hommes still 

referred to it, in 1997, as “Uncle Gabe’s house,”65

even though he had not occupied it for nearly thirty 

years. It was a two-room cypress and bousillage 

cabin with a fireplace at one end, closely resembling 

the tenant cabins that remain at Oakland Plantation. 

 

62 Malone. p. 132. 63 Ibid., pp. 147-148. 64 Ibid., pp. 171-173, and 9th Census of the United States, 

1870, Population Schedules, Natchitoches Parish, LA, 

reviewed online at Ancestry.com, 2002. 

65 Malone, pp. 171-173. 

Gabe Nargot is vividly remembered both by members 

of the Prud’homme family and by tenants who lived 

in the old Quarters when he lived there. Lawrence 

Helaire remembered him as living in the cabin alone 

“for a few years.”66 Carrie Helaire, daughter of Ben 

Helaire, who lived in the South Tenant Cabin, also 

remembered him as living in the cabin alone. Since 

her family left the area in the late 1930s, his wife had 

apparently died by that time. 

Gabe Nargot was the gin engineer when the power 

for the gin was still a steam engine.67 Phanor 

Prud’homme II, who inherited the plantation after his 

father, Alphonse, died in 1919,68 replaced the steam 

engine with a diesel-burning Fairbanks Morse engine 

in the early to mid-twenties.69 According to Kenneth 

Prudhomme, Phanor taught Gabe Nargot the 

intricacies of running the steam engine by keeping 

the boiler fired. Kenneth related a story to Ann 

Malone, saying that Phanor had shown Gabe 

repeatedly how to put his hand on the bearing to 

determine if the engine was becoming overheated. If 

the engine overheated, it was to be shut down to 

prevent it from exploding. As Kenneth’s story goes, 

one day during ginning, when everything was 

running smoothly, Gabe unexpectedly pulled the 

clutch and shut everything down: the sucker pipes, 

the gin stand, and the press all stopped dead. Phanor 

ran to see what had happened. “Gabe reached over 

and put his hand on the cylinder of the steam engine 

and said, ‘Mr. Phanor, that thing is hot.’ Of course, 

[Phanor] blew up and (let loose with) a few 

expletives and said, 'Don’t you have sense enough to 

know there’s live steam in there? It’s supposed to be 

hot.’”70 Apparently, Gabe Nargot eventually learned 

where to place his hand to determine whether or not 

the engine was overheating as he remained the gin 

engineer for about twenty years. 

The duties of the gin engineer, called the “stand 

man,” were to maintain the gin machine, and to tend 

it when it was running. Kenneth Prudhomme 

described the gin operation of his time to Ann 

Malone as a three-story wooden building with a fuelburning, diesel engine pulling the same line shaft and 

machinery as the old steam engine used to pull. On 

the bottom floor, the building held nothing but cotton 

storage rooms. Every hand on the plantation had his 

own room in which he put his cotton, and the “sucker 

system” was designed with an opening in every 

room. The hand who brought the cotton from the 

field ran a “sucker pipe” that sucked the cotton off 

 

66 Ibid., p. 190. 67 Prud’homme, Kenneth, to Ann Malone, 11 March 1997, p. 

9. 

68 Prud’homme, Lucile K., p. 4. 69 Prud’homme, Kenneth, to Ann Malone, 11 March 1997, p. 

9. 

70 Ibid., pp. 9-10. 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 27

the wagon and into the storage areas. When the hand 

was ready to gin his cotton, a “sucker pipe” was 

opened to the room that fed the cotton directly into 

the gin. 

The main (actually, second) floor was where the gin 

stands and press were located. There was one fan in 

the gin. It sucked the cotton off the wagon, and the 

cotton was separated by a condenser. Then, the seed 

was blown to the Seed House, and the lint dropped 

down to be pressed. The only thing in the gin was 

the separator and the distributor, plus, at the top of 

the stand, several fans, and the press. There were 

more cotton storage rooms at the top of the building, 

on a “mezzanine” level, but they were not used in 

Kenneth’s memory, probably because of a reduction 

in the labor force.71 The system Kenneth described 

resembles the “Munger system,” invented by Robert 

S. Munger in the mid-1880s and verifies that the 

Prud’hommes installed such a system on their 

plantation. 

In 1940 or 1941, the cotton crop was so poor that 

only 7 bales of cotton were made. The gin was 

closed and remained idle until Alphonse, son of 

 

71 Prudhomme, Kenneth, to Ann Malone, 11 March 1997, pp. 

10-12. 

Phanor Prud’homme II, who was managing the 

plantation for his father, decided to tear it down, junk 

the equipment, and try to salvage what timber he 

could for repairs to the other farm buildings and the 

Main House.72 It appears that the Gin Barn and 

Engine House were dismantled sometime between 

1941 and 1947. The diesel engine that ran the gin 

equipment was sold to J.H. Williams and was at 

Cedar Grove plantation in 1997.73 It is now a 

roadside ornament at the Cane River Gin on Highway 

494 in Natchitoches. After Phanor Prud’homme 

closed his gin, the Prud’hommes took their cotton to 

Cloutier’s Starlight Plantation five or 

six miles away for ginning.74 Today, all that remains 

of the Gin Complex is the Seed House, the Cistern 

used to provide water to the engine when it was 

powered by steam, and the remains of several brick 

constructs designed to support the gin machinery and 

engine. 

The Prud’hommes ceased farming operations 

altogether in 1985. In 1998, the National Park 

Service purchased 44 acres of Oakland Plantation, 

including the portion on which the Gin Complex 

stands. This acreage is now a part of the Cane River 

Creole National Historical Park. 

 

72 Ibid., p. 12. 73 Ibid., to Ann Malone, oral interview, 14 April 1996, 

transcript, p. 28. 

74 Ibid., to Ann Malone, 11 March 1997, pp. 15-16. 

Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 29 

Figure 6. Steam engine typical of type used at Oakland 

Plantation. 

Chronology of Development and Use 

The primary components of the Gin Complex were 

built in 1859 through 1861. The records of Seneca 

Pace document the construction of what was referred 

to as the new gin. Construction of the new Gin Barn 

was completed in 1859. On January 14, 1860, the 

seed cotton, which was being stored in the new Gin 

Barn, was moved to the “mule gin,” presumably for 

processing.75 “On January 19th the engine at the 

steam [-powered] gin [complex] on the left hand 

bank [opposite the Main House] was dismantled and 

hauled across the river, a difficult and tedious job that 

took three days.... In August, the press on the far side 

[left hand bank] was dismantled and brought over to 

the new gin-house...”76 The construction date of the 

Seed House is less certain and poorly documented. 

However, it seems logical to conclude that it was 

constructed at approximately the same time. Malone 

mentions two references to it recorded in January of 

1861, probably in the farm journals of Seneca Pace. 

In one of these, the Seed House was being 

“covered.”77 In addition, analysis of materials and 

construction methods used in the Seed House indicate 

that the east portion of the structure dates to the 1860 

construction period. 

The new Gin Complex, with a Gin Barn, Seed House, 

Engine House, and Cistern, was located in a field 

south of the Overseer’s House and west of the old 

Quarters.78 From analysis of the materials and 

construction methods, it appears that the Seed House 

currently located there is probably at least partly the 

Seed House originally built at this location. About 

forty feet to the south of the Seed House is the 

location of the original Gin Barn. This estimate is 

based on the spacing of the supports for the seed pipe 

shown in the c. 1905 photograph of the Prud’hommes 

with a cotton bale. The Gin Barn was a three bay, 

three-story structure with a central gable ridge 

running north to south. The Seed House was 

connected to the Gin Barn by a 12” diameter sheet 

metal seed transport pipe. Approximately twenty feet 

south of the Gin Barn was the original location of the 

Engine House, which housed the steam engine and 

boiler. A 16’-diameter cistern about 12 feet deep was 

constructed between the Engine House and the Gin 

 

75 Firth, n.p., and Malone, p. 60. 76 Firth, n.p. 77 Malone, p. 62. 78 The buildings of the plantation are not oriented precisely to 

the points of the compass. For ease of description, the 

orientation has been simplified. For purposes of this report, 

Cane River is to the east of the plantation and all buildings 

are oriented on that position, with north and south being 

assumed to be parallel to the river, east toward the river, and 

west away from it. 

Barn. The construction of the support buildings for 

the new Gin Barn Complex is documented in the 

journal of overseer Seneca Pace. On February 26, 

1860, Pace recorded “Mill hands work on new gin, 

framing engine [house] work brick for foundation.” 79 

In March, he recorded that workers put the roof on 

the engine house, completed construction of a cistern, 

set the engine and worked on brick pillow for the 

engine shaft. Phanor Prud’homme wrote to his agent 

in New Orleans to arrange for insuring his new gin, 

estimating its value at $3000.80 Pace’s notes for 

April 11 and 16 “show that three men were used to 

construct a flue, and 390 barrels of cement were 

required to build the engine room’s chimney (at a 

cost of $42.99) at the New Gin (1860 Record, 13 

March, 1860, p. 12; Quarterly Inventory, p. 5; 11 

April, 1860, p. 17 UNC).”81 On July 21, 1860, three 

men continued to work on the new Gin Complex, 

laying a brick pillow for the gin stand shaft and 

building a ramp to the gin stand level of the Gin Barn 

from cypress planks.82 During the peak of the 

picking season, daily yields of picked cotton were 

stored in the old gin complex’s receiving room. 

(September 18, 1860 entry). On September 27, Pace 

recorded that the flue was finished, and the engine 

and pump started at the new Gin Complex. However, 

the pump supplying the boiler failed and had to be 

repaired.83 On October 1, Pace noted that he had 

 

79 Pace, n.p. 80 Firth, n.p. 81 Malone, pp. 60-61. 82 Ibid.,p. 61, and Firth, n.p. 83 Firth, n.p. 
Chronology of Development and Use 

30 Oakland Gin HSR 

Figure 7. Gin Barn at Magnolia Plantation. 

ginned and pressed twenty-five bales that day. And, 

on November 1, he praised the performance of the 

gin and the new hand who was running it. With the 

ginning season almost over, on December 8, hands 

were used to fence off the new Gin Complex with 

split rails.84

The gin complexes at Oakland Plantation and at 

Magnolia Plantation, located just ten miles away, 

were contemporaries. The Oakland Gin Complex 

was constructed c. 1860, and the Magnolia Gin 

Complex was constructed either just before or just 

after the Civil War. Likewise, the two ceased 

operation around the same time: Oakland in 1941 or 

1942 and Magnolia in 1939. Based on the midtwentieth century information on Oakland and the 

late nineteenth century information on Magnolia, it is 

known that the two gin barns had a similar capacity, 

each housing two gin stands. The ginning machinery 

at both was powered by steam in the second half of 

the nineteenth century and converted to diesel in the 

early twentieth century. 

It is logical, therefore, to consider the Magnolia Gin 

Barn in trying to understand the layout and design of 

the Oakland Gin Barn. A comparison of the existing 

Gin Barn at Magnolia with the Oakland Gin Barn is 

limited by the sparse verbal and visual documentation 

of the Oakland Gin Barn. However, the information 

that does exist suggests some notable differences 

between the two structures. Because the Gin Barn at 

Magnolia Plantation still exists, and the one at 

Oakland Plantation does not, it is useful to compare 

the Magnolia Gin Barn, which we can see, with what 

we know of the demolished Oakland Gin Barn. For 

example, the construction, layout, and framing of the 

two are quite different. From the historic 

photographs and the general location of the Oakland 

 

84 Malone, p. 62. 

Gin Barn in the area between the Cistern and the 

Seed House, the Oakland Gin Barn appears to have 

been smaller in scale than the Magnolia Gin Barn. 

The Magnolia Gin Barn is a single bay structure with 

a large, steep gable roof supported by the exterior 

heavy timber wall framing, collar beams, and some 

center posts in the area of the ginning machinery and 

press apparatus. The photographs of the Oakland Gin 

Barn and the description provided by Mr. Kenneth 

Prudhomme indicate it had three bays: a higher 

central bay, which was the location of the gin stands, 

and two lower side bays to the west and east. The 

Oakland Gin Barn appears to have been more 

compartmentalized than the Magnolia Gin Barn and 

constructed to accommodate steam powered gin 

stands and a steam-powered press located in the 

center bay, with the lower east and west bays housing 

support functions. This supports that the Gin Barn 

existing in 1941 was probably the same as the one 

originally built c. 1860. 

The presses of the two Gin Complexes were also 

different. The wooden screw press at Magnolia is a 

significant piece of craftsmanship and early 

technology. This appears to have been the only gin 

complex at Magnolia Plantation. The volume and 

character of the existing Magnolia Gin Barn appears 

to have been influenced by the need and desire to 

accommodate the large wooden screw press inside 

the barn, where all ginning took place. Oakland 

Plantation, on the other hand, had two to four gin 

barns on site over time. This may account for the 

construction of smaller gin buildings at Oakland 

Plantation than at Magnolia. Early gin complexes at 

Oakland Plantation possessed screw presses, both 

wooden and iron. When the new Gin Barn was built, 

the press installed in it was most likely the indoor, 

steam-powered, iron press purchased by Phanor 

Prud’homme in the 1850s. 

There were differences in the orientation of the gin 

stands in the two gin barns. At Magnolia, the gin 

stands are oriented perpendicular to the long axis of 

the barn. With the Magnolia Engine House to the 

northeast of the Gin Barn, it appears there would be a 

drive belt of considerable length to transfer the 

energy from the engine to the driveline of the gin 

stands. The gin stand orientation and power 

distribution was different at Oakland. The engine, 

located south of the Cistern, was in close proximity 

to a drive shaft that extended across the Cistern and 

into the Gin Barn. The Gin Barn was centered over 

the main drive shaft. The gin stands were centered 

along the center axis of the three story central bay of 

the Oakland Gin Barn. This configuration likely 

produced more stress on the Oakland Gin Barn drive 

shaft, whereas the alignment of the engine to the 

driveline at Magnolia likely produced more wear and 

requirements for maintenance on the belt. 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 31

Figure 8. Interpreted east-west section of Gin Barn, facing south, based on description by Kenneth Prudhomme. 

Changes to the Gin Complex after the Civil War are 

not well documented in the farm records and must be 

extrapolated from the construction and historical 

events. Another gin stand was ordered by Alphonse 

Prud’homme and delivered by the steamer Caddo on 

April 11, 1866.85 Whether this was to replace an 

existing gin stand or to augment the one already in 

use is unknown. By 1885, Robert S. Munger had 

invented the Munger system of ginning. Photographs 

from 1905 and descriptions of the ginning operation 

by members of the Prud’homme family indicate that 

this type of system was installed at Oakland 

Plantation. It is probable that it was installed by 

1890. Whether the original Gin Barn was removed 

and a new barn built to accommodate the system is 

unknown, but there is no evidence in plantation 

records that this occurred. It is probable that the 

Prud’hommes simply adapted their existing, c. 1860 

Gin Barn to the new system. 

The Munger ginning system remained in use, with 

some modifications to equipment and housing. In the 

early 1920s, the Prud’hommes replaced the steam 

engine with a Fairbanks Morse diesel engine on a 

new concrete foundation to the west of the Gin 

Barn.86 This required some modification to the drive 

system of the gin when the mounts for the diesel 

engine were located to the west of the Gin Barn and 

 

85 Prud’homme, Alphonse, n.p. 86 Prud’homme, Kenneth, to Ann Malone, 11 Mar 1997, p. 9. 

the steam engine was abandoned and the addition of a 

shed to house the new engine. When the diesel 

engine was installed, the drive shaft extending over 

the Cistern to the then-abandoned steam engine was 

cut, and a new fitting was installed to accept the drive 

mechanism from the diesel engine. The diesel engine 

was protected from the elements by a wood structure, 

the specific characteristics of which are unknown. 

The then-existing press was probably replaced at this 

time with the hydraulic press system recalled by Mr. 

Kenneth Prudhomme. Mr. Prudhomme’s memory of 

the Gin Complex as it appeared from the early 1930s 

until the Gin Barn was demolished was most helpful 

in understanding the layout of the Gin Complex and 

its operation. However, it is important to note that 

his evidence may not be reflective of the original 

nineteenth century complex. The following 

represents information provided by Mr. Prudhomme, 

born in 1929, to Mr. Jack Pyburn, Historic 

Preservation Architect, of the Office of Jack Pyburn, 

Architect, Inc., on January 16, 2003, combined with 

information gathered from the two c. 1905 

photographs and existing features of the site. 

With an understanding of the overall layout of the 

Gin Complex and with the information provided by 

Mr. Prudhomme, the value of the c. 1905 photograph 

of the north end of the Gin Barn is amplified. From 

this photograph, it can be established that there was a 

central bay of the Gin Barn that was higher than a 

visible west bay. An upper eave projected over the 
Chronology of Development and Use 

32 Oakland Gin HSR 

upper west wall of the central bay of the Gin Barn. 

The slope on the upper roof appears in the 

photograph to have been approximately a ten in 

twelve pitch. The rafter ends of the upper roof were 

likely exposed under the eave. The upper 4’ to 5’ of 

the west wall of the central bay was vertical with 

horizontal siding. Four to five feet below the upper 

center bay eave, a lower roof framed into the west 

(long) side of the Gin Barn. According to Mr. 

Prudhomme, this western bay extended from the 

north end of the Gin Barn to approximately the 

midpoint of the west elevation of the central bay. 

The c. 1905 photograph reveals a shed roof on the 

north end of the Gin Barn that framed into the 

vertical north wall of the center bay. The north shed 

area was enclosed with horizontal siding, either 

clapboard or horizontal planks. It is difficult to 

precisely determine the siding materials from the 

photograph. According to the photograph, the north 

shed area projected approximately 15’ to 20’ to the 

north from the north wall of the central bay of the 

Gin Barn. Mr. Prudhomme described the north end 

of the shed as having a roof dormer with a door 

where the bales were moved out of the Gin Barn and 

onto wagons. 

Based on Mr. Prudhomme’s description, the Gin 

Barn was symmetrical in its overall construction, 

with a center bay, an east bay, and a west bay. 

However, the projection of the east bay extended the 

full length of the east elevation, twice as long as the 

west bay. The east bay also had a dormer that 

accommodated the sucker pipe of the Munger 

system. The c. 1905 photograph shows the seed 

transport pipe extending from the Gin Barn, 

presumably to the Seed House, supported by 

substantial wooden posts. 

The Gin Barn was constructed of wood. Based on 

the c. 1905 photograph, it is difficult to determine if 

the building was painted. However, it is known that 

both the Seed House at Oakland and the Gin Barn at 

Magnolia were not painted. Therefore, it is 

reasonable to assume that the Gin Barn at Oakland 

was also not painted. 

The c. 1905 photograph suggests the north shed area 

had a low pier foundation. Mr. Prudhomme indicated 

that he remembered the larger Gin Barn structure 

being on piers. 

Mr. Prudhomme described the interior layout of the 

Gin Barn as follows. The building was three stories 

tall. The lower floor, which was no more than two 

feet off the bare earth, accommodated the drive shaft 

and associated transfer gears and wheels for the 

machinery at that level and above. Mr. Prudhomme 

stated that some part of the lower level remained a 

dirt floor. However, he could not remember the 

specific configuration of the first level floor enough 

to be able to describe the extent of the dirt versus 

wood flooring. 

According to Kenneth Prudhomme, the last press was 

a two box (wooden with metal straps) hydraulic uppacking baler. The foundation for the press was 

located on the first floor at the north end of the 

central bay, west of the drive shaft. Mr. Prudhomme 

stated that he suspected the foundation for the press 

was still evident at or close to the surface of the 

ground in the area between the Seed House and 

Cistern. A film of the plantation was made when the 

Gin Barn was still standing. This film was later 

converted to videotape and a copy of it is in the 

possession of the National Park Service. Video 

footage of the Gin Barn reveals a dormer on what, 

Figure 9. Interpreted plan of Gin Complex. 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 33

according to Mr. Prudhomme, appears to be the north 

side of the Gin Barn. This dormer contained a door. 

Two laborers were shown moving a bale of cotton 

from the Gin Barn to a wagon. With the press 

located in the northwest corner of the Gin Barn, the 

north end would be the appropriate location for 

loading activities to occur. This addition to the Gin 

Barn was probably made during the 1920s, when the 

steam engine was replaced with a diesel engine, and 

the steam-powered press was replaced, possibly, with 

an hydraulic one. The c. 1905 photograph of the 

west side of the north end of the Gin Barn provides 

no evidence of a dormer or loading dock for cotton 

bales. 

The second floor of the central bay of the Gin Barn 

supported the separator, two gin stands, a fan, and a 

condenser. The second floor of the east bay housed 

seed cotton storage bins for the tenants and, later, for 

local community farmers who were also serviced 

during the years of ginning operations at Oakland. 

The sucker pipe that moved seed cotton from wagons 

to both the bins and Gin Barn was located on the east 

side of the east bay in a dormer on the low roof. The 

west bay of the second floor probably housed the rest 

of the up-packing press machinery, and would have 

been the location of the bale-loading activities. 

Mr. Prudhomme did not recall the use of the third 

floor, but historical research suggests the third floor 

was once used for seed cotton storage, though that 

practice had been discontinued by the 1930s. Based 

on the c. 1905 photograph, the third floor was likely 

confined to the central bay. 

The shorter west wing of the Gin Barn housed spare 

parts and “junk” from around the site. Mr. 

Prudhomme stated children were not allowed in the 

west bay because it was so disorganized and 

dangerous. 

 

It is not possible, based on currrent information, to 

determine how many of the outside bay additions 

were modifications to an earlier configuration of the 

Oakland Gin Barn. However, it is likely that some of 

the sheds located off the central bay were added. It is 

known that the east bay at the Oakland Gin Barn 

accommodated storage bins for tenant and 

community farmers in its later years of operation. 

The east bay extended the full length of the central 

bay in the north-south direction. The sucker pipe was 

in a dormer over the east bay. The low-pitched shed 

on the north side of the Oakland Gin Barn in the 

c.1905 photograph appears to be an addition to the 

central, three-story structure. There are no known 

photographs of the west elevation. Kenneth 

Prudhomme remembered that there was a room off 

the central bay to the west that extended from the 

northwest corner of the central bay to approximately 

the middle of the west elevation of the central bay. 

This configuration could well have been an addition. 

The Engine House constructed for the diesel engine 

installed in the 1920s on the south end of the western 

elevation of the central bay is a known addition. In 

contrast to the Magnolia Gin Barn, which was 

simpler in its exterior configuration and spacious 

enough to accommodate modifications in the ginning 

process on its interior, the Oakland Gin Barn was 

smaller and likely accommodated changes in the 

ginning process and operations with additions. 

At some point, the pit scale initially located on the 

east side of the Seed House was moved to the east 

side of the Gin Barn. The weighing mechanism was 

also relocated from the Seed House to the second 

floor of the Gin Barn to be run by the sucker pipe 

operator. 

Unlike the Gin Barn, the Seed House still exists and 

can provide some clues regarding its history. 

Framing of the Seed House indicates that it was 

enlarged to the west at some time after it was 

originally constructed. The earliest documentation of 

the Seed House is a photograph with the structure in 

the background. This photograph was likely taken on 

the same day as the c. 1905 Gin Barn photograph, 

based on evidence of the clothing worn by the people 

in the photograph. Several characteristics of the Seed 

House are notable in the c. 1905 photograph. In the 

photograph, there is no shed roof on the south side of 

the structure. There is what appears to be a gutter 

system with a drainage trough extending toward the 

Gin Barn and, possibly, the Cistern. However, the 

existing Cistern seems to be too far from the Seed 

House to expect water to be collected from the Seed 

House roof, particularly given the amount of ginning 

Figure 10. Photo, c. 1905, showing part of the gin barn and 

the seed-transport pipe. 
Chronology of Development and Use 

34 Oakland Gin HSR 

Figure 11. Seed house, c. 1999.

activity (weighing and sucking cotton) known to be 

taking place on the east side of the Gin Barn. The 

east shed roof is visible in the c. 1905 photograph. 

Two metal vent stacks are visible, one on each gable 

end of the original structure. The south windows are 

not visible, but they could have been covered by their 

shutters and, thus, not visible in the photograph, 

given the distance the photographer was from the 

Seed House. 

An examination of the 1941 aerial photograph reveals 

that the east shed of the Seed House was deeper than 

the current shed. The depth of the east shed in this 

photograph would probably require post supports. 

The 1941 shed configuration would have been able to 

accommodate a wagon and may have been of the 

period when the pit scales were located at the east 

end of the Seed House. There is a suggestion in the 

1941 aerial photograph that both the south shed and 

the seed transfer pipe were in place at that time. The 

configuration of the south shed and the alignment of 

the seed transfer pipe are consistent in both the 1941 

aerial photograph of the site and the c. 1905 

photograph of the Gin Barn. 

Ginning was conducted in the following manner. 

Upon arrival, a wagon would pull up to the east side 

of the Gin Barn to have the seed cotton removed 

from the wagon using the sucker pipe. The cotton 

would either be processed through the gin stands at 

that time or stored in a designated bin in the west bay 

of the Gin Barn. Once processed, the ginned cotton 

went to the press on the north end of the Gin Barn 

and the seed went to the Seed House via the metal 

Munger transport pipe. If the seed was collected for 

a customer, it was diverted to one of two chutes on 

the west end of the Seed House. If the seed was 

collected for plantation use, it was diverted to the 

floor of the Seed House. After completion of the 

ginning process, a customer could pull up to the west 

end of the Seed House and load the seed into his 

wagon via the seed chute. He could then pull his 

wagon around to the north side of the Gin Barn and 

have his cotton loaded before exiting the site. 

The Prud’hommes stopped ginning their own cotton 

in 1941 or 1942. Thereafter, the buildings fell into 

disuse and, ultimately, disrepair. Eventually, the 

Prud’hommes dismantled the Gin Barn and Engine 

House. A 1941 aerial photograph of the site shows 

the Gin Complex buildings intact. Maps of the 

plantation drawn from a 1947 aerial photograph and a 

1958 aerial photograph reference the “site of gin 

building,” and the “site of boiler room,” though other 

buildings and structures on the property are 

referenced simply by their name. Therefore, it is 

reasonable to assume that both the boiler room and 

Gin Barn were no longer in existence when the 1947 

aerial photograph was taken. The Seed House, the 

Cistern, and the brick supports for gin and engine 

equipment alone remain to bear witness to the 

location of the Gin Complex. 

The National Park Service purchased 44 acres of 

Oakland Plantation in 1998 to incorporate into the 

proposed new Cane River Creole National Historical 

Park. The Gin Complex was part of this purchase. 

By the time the National Park Service acquired the 

plantation in 1994, the Seed House had shed roofs on 

both the north and south elevations of the main 

structure. A c. 1999 photograph reveals the 

clapboard siding on the east elevation and the 

exposed framing on the south elevation. The historic 

east door is visible, and the metal roof is also visible. 

The Park’s staff reports that the structure’s 

foundation, which was substantially wood, was in an 

advanced state of deterioration. In 1999, the National 

Park Service completed stabilization and preservation 

treatments at the Seed House. 

Summary of National Park Service 

Treatments 

Stabilization and rehabilitation of the Seed House to 

adapt it for facility management functions were 

undertaken in 1999 by the National Park Service to 

respond to direction regarding use and treatment 

established in the National Park Service General 

Management Plan (GMP) for the Cane River Creole 

National Historical Park. Though in an advanced 

stage of structural failure, a significant amount of the 

historic features of the structure were existing at the 

time the National Park Service acquired the site. 

These included: floor beams, the wood frame 

superstructure, the roof framing for the east portion 

of the building, the seed hopper, a meaningful 

amount of exterior and interior siding, window 

framing, corrugated and 5V-profile metal roofing, 

and the west seed chute shutters. Based on the 

Design Analysis prepared by the Cane River Creole 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 35

Figure 12. Seed House, east elevation. 

National Historical Park staff dated September 25, 

2001 and on field observations, the rehabilitation and 

adaptive use work by the National Park Service since 

1999 has included: 

Constructing new foundation piers of brick and 

cinder block. These piers replace what were historic 

wood piers on stone pads that were structurally 

unsuitable for reuse. Non-historic materials and 

methods were used for the new foundation. 

Repair and replacement of floor framing. The floor 

joists in the east portion of the structure were sistered 

with contemporary 2” by 10” lumber. The floor 

joists and south sill beam were replaced in the west 

seed chute addition. 

Replacement of flooring with plywood. The original 

flooring in the Seed House was 4/4”87 by 12” buttjointed planks deemed by the National Park Service 

staff to be sufficiently deteriorated to require 

replacement. To accommodate the light carpentry 

use for which the building is slated under its facility 

management designation, the decision was made to 

use 3⁄4” plywood sub-flooring and finish flooring. At 

the time of the site visit for this report, the subflooring was in place. It was reported by staff at the 

site that the finish layer of flooring is to be 3⁄4” 

plywood cut into 12” widths and installed in a buttjointed fashion. 

Reinstallation of existing metal roofing and 

replacement of deteriorated roofing. The roofing on 

the main structure (both east and west sections) was 

numbered, removed, and replaced in its original 

location with new fasteners, as was the metal roofing 

on the east and north shed roofs. The south and west 

sheds have received new roofing to match the 

characteristics of the deteriorated metal roofing found 

on the structure at the outset of stabilization. To 

accommodate the proposed use and occupancy of the 

Seed House, the roof assembly was modified from 

the historic assembly. The historic assembly 

included rafter framing with lath boards as sheathing 

and metal roofing panels attached to the lath. The 

adapted roof assembly includes the historic rafters 

and lath, the addition of building felt, 11⁄2” insulation 

board, and an adhesive backed membrane moisture 

barrier, all covered by the historic metal roofing 

panels. 

Stabilization and reinforcing of the structural 

framing. The existing structural framing that was 

judged by National Park Service staff to be sound 

was retained and re-secured. 

 

87 The use of fractions in lumber dimensions denotes true 

measurements. For example, 4/4 indicates four quarters of 

an inch or a 1” lumber dimension. 

Reconstruction and modification of exterior walls. 

One of the most significant modifications to the 

original assembly of the Seed House has been the 

adaptation of the historic wall system to 

accommodate conditioned space. While the building 

is not planned to be air conditioned, it will be heated 

and insulated for occupant comfort. In addition to 

the modification of the roof assembly, the wall 

assemblies were altered to retain the historic exterior 

presentation and produce an interior finish with the 

same materials as on the original north and south 

elevations. The north and east elevation siding 

appears to be mostly historic with some new 

materials added to replace materials that had 

substantially deteriorated. The west elevation siding 

was reconstructed to match the historic siding in 

dimensions and species. On the north and south 

elevations and in between the interior and exterior 

finishes, a layer of insulation and a vapor barrier 

were installed. To accommodate the additional wall 

thickness, furring strips were attached on the inside 

of hewn columns. On the east and west interior 

elevations, the hewn, heavy timber wall framing was 

left exposed. Behind the historic east elevation 

exterior siding and the west elevation siding is a layer 

of insulation with an interior finish of Homosote, a 

proprietary fiberboard with sound and temperature 

Figure 13. Seed House, north elevation. 
Chronology of Development and Use 

36 Oakland Gin HSR 

insulating qualities. This finish is installed between 

the heavy timber framing members. 

Framing for the bathroom and utility closet in the 

northwest corner of the building included installing 

conventional stud walls and gypsum wallboard. The 

bathroom and utility closet extend to the height of the 

original upper plate, substantially retaining visibility 

of the overall volumetric qualities of the interior of 

the Seed House. The primary impact of the 

bathroom, which encloses the northwest corner of the 

west addition, is on the character and understanding 

of the historic seed chute. 

Reframing of the north and south shed roofs with 

additional diagonal supports. As can be seen in the 

c. 1999 photograph, the south shed framing had 

failed. It was determined by National Park Service 

staff that the structural framing of the north and south 

sheds was inadequate. Supplemental framing was 

installed on both shed roofs prior to the installation of 

roofing panels. 

Construction and installation of exterior doors with 

reinforced plywood exterior doors. When the 

National Park Service acquired Oakland 

Plantation, only the east horizontal sliding door of the 

Seed House was extant. The original door openings 

were retained, and non-historic plywood doors were 

fabricated and installed. The Design Analysis for the 

rehabilitation and adaptive use of the structure states 

that the temporary doors will be replaced with 13⁄4” 

vertical rough-sawn cypress plank doors with interior 

horizontal battens. 

The investigation of 2002 conducted for this Historic 

Structure Report revealed that interior modifications 

to the Seed House are proceeding. Temporary 

electrical service has been installed and, it is 

presumed, water and sanitary utilities will be 

installed soon.

Figure 14. NPS rehabilitative work on the floor framing system of the Seed House, 1999. Note sistering of historically sloped floor 

beams to achieve level floor surface. 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 37

National Park Service 39 

Figure 15. Drawing from 1947 aerial photo of Oakland Plantation with Gin Complex indicated by dark shading. 

Physical Description

The existing Seed House, Cistern, and engine 

foundations located southwest of the Overseer’s 

House are surviving features of a Gin Complex, the 

primary components of which were built in 1859 and 

1860.88 The Gin Complex, of which the existing 

Seed House is part, is known to have included a Gin 

Barn, the existing Seed House, a steam engine and 

Engine House, a diesel engine and Engine House, a 

Cistern, and two pit scales. 

Based on the c. 1941 photograph of the layout and an 

understanding of the operation of the Gin Complex, a 

number of features have been lost, with no visible 

evidence as to their precise location. They include the 

 

88 The buildings of the plantation are not oriented precisely to 

the points of the compass. However, for ease of description, 

the orientation has been simplified. For purposes of this 

report, Cane River is to the east of the plantation and all 

buildings are oriented on that position, with north and south 

being assumed to be parallel to the river, east toward the 

river, and west away from it. 

Gin Barn structure, the Steam Engine Boiler, the 

Press Foundation, the Pit Scales at the east elevation 

of the Seed House, and the Pit Scales at the east 

elevation of the Gin Barn 

The locations of the Steam Engine House and Diesel 

Engine House are known from the remains of the 

support structures for the engines they housed, but 

the extents of their footprints is unknown. 

The historic Gin Complex site includes the Seed 

House, the Cistern, two masonry foundations south of 

the Cistern, and two concrete foundations northwest 

of the Cistern. The two masonry foundations south of 

the Cistern supported the steam engine, the first 

power source for the gin stands and press. South of 

the masonry engine mounts was the brick-enclosed 

boiler. The machinery was located in its own 

structure, called the Engine House in plantation 

records. In the 1920s, the steam engine and boiler 

were replaced by a Fairbanks Morris diesel engine 
Physical Description 

40 Oakland Gin HSR 

Figure 16. Cistern with cover. 

Figure 17. Steam engine foundation mount. 

Figure 18. Fairbanks-Morse engine from Oakland 

Plantation. 

located to the west of the Gin Barn. The foundations 

for this engine are those to the northwest of the 

existing cistern. This section of the Historic 

Structure report contains descriptions of the 

remaining features of the historic Gin Complex. 

Descriptions of missing features may be found in the 

Chronology of Development and Use section of this 

report. 

Cistern 

The Cistern is located about 240’ south of the Seed 

House. Constructed of brick, it measures 15’-3” in 

diameter and 12’-21⁄2” deep. This volume produced a 

capacity of 13,553 gallons of water when full. 

Mechanical engineers at Hartrampf, Inc. calculated 

that, when full, the Cistern could provide about 400 

hours, or about 17 days, of operation of the steam 

engine before it would require replenishing. The 

masonry wall of the Cistern is 9” thick and coated 

with plaster on the interior. The plaster is in fair 

condition. The exterior wall has remnants of a stucco 

coating. 

 

A wood-framed cover was installed on the top of the 

Cistern during the stabilization phase of work at 

Oakland. The cover is fitted with screen wire on the 

underside as a safety measure and to discourage both 

mosquito breeding and debris collection. 

What appears to be a brick wall at grade is located 

just northeast of the Cistern. This wall is possible 

evidence of a larger brick structure built at this 

location. The portion of the wall exposed at grade 

appears to share a common center point with the 

extant Cistern and could indicate the presence of an 

earlier, larger cistern at this location. However, no 

information has been found to provide any additional 

insight into the character or purpose of this structural 

remnant. 

Visual observation suggests that the Cistern is, 

overall, structurally sound but not without problems. 

Several cracks in the brick wall were observed. The 

condition of the Cistern is considered to be fair to 

poor given the weakened condition and substantial 

delamination and loss of the stucco coating on the 

interior and exterior walls and the evidence of 

cracking on the interior wall. 

Steam Engine Foundations 

The steam engine equipment foundations are located 

on the south side of the Cistern and are constructed of 

masonry with embedded threaded rods used to anchor 

the engine to its foundation. The condition of the 

south equipment mounts is poor. The masonry is 

deteriorated, and a significant number of the bricks 

are missing. The feature is exposed to the elements. 

According to Mr. Kenneth Prudhomme, the steam 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 41

engine was mounted to these foundations and housed 

in a structure, the Engine House, for weather 

protection. The boiler was located immediately south 

of the steam engine and was encased in brick. Mr. 

Prudhomme recalled that, when the boiler was 

dismantled in the 1920s, the brick from the boiler 

housing was used for other purposes on the 

plantation, most notably, the construction of the east 

and south steps to the Main House. 

Diesel Engine Foundations 

The Fairbanks Morse engine from the Oakland Gin 

Complex is now a roadside ornament at the Cane 

River Gin on Highway 494 in Natchitoches. The 

remaining evidence of the diesel engine and its 

associated components is two concrete foundations 

with threaded rods extending from the top for 

anchorage of the engine. The two foundations are of 

different sizes. The north foundation is 4’-3” by 8’-

0” and is 1’-3” above grade. The north foundation 

has four 1” threaded rods extending 8” above the top 

of the foundation. The foundation concrete contains 

brick chards as aggregate, similar to the material used 

on the porch supports of the South Tenant Cabin and 

found in some concrete pieces in the vicinity of the 

Main House. The south foundation is smaller, 1’-4” 

by 5’-0” and is 2’-0” above the prevailing grade. It is 

constructed of the same concrete composition as the 

north foundation. The two 3⁄4”-diameter threaded 

rods on the center axis of this foundation extend 

approximately 3” above the top of the concrete and 

sit in 3” steel sleeves. The south foundation is 3’-3” 

south of the north foundation. The west equipment 

mounts are in fair condition. They appear to be 

structurally stable but are chipped. The threaded 

steel rods are exposed to the elements and are 

continuing to rust and deteriorate. 

Seed House 

The Seed House is a one-story wood frame structure 

set on piers and measuring 50’-7” by 30’-2”, 

approximately 2,550 square feet of enclosed space. 

The structure has been modified at least once since 

construction. The larger, eastern portion of the 

building measures 37’- 7” by 30’-2”. The western 

portion was an addition, and measures 30’-2” by 13’-

0”. Each elevation of the building has a shed roof 

attachment. The Seed House is rectangular in plan, 

with a gable roof running east to west. The structure 

has six windows, four on the north elevation and two 

on the south elevation. There are three door openings 

on the exterior of the building, two on the south 

elevation and one on the east elevation. The west 

elevation contains shutters at the seed chute. On the 

interior, the structure is an open room except for the 

newly-constructed unisex restroom in the northwest 

corner and the storage room immediately east of the 

restroom. A line of five columns at the west end of 

the east section of the building and east of the seed 

chute on the west wall of the structure indicate the 

likely western extent of the original Seed House. 

An understanding of the characteristics and function 

of the Seed House have been enhanced with the 

assistance of gin historian, Mr. Tommy Brown of 

Continental Eagle Corporation, of Prattville, 

Alabama, and the description of the Oakland Seed 

House provided by Mr. Kenneth Prudhomme. In his 

description of the overall layout and operation of the 

Gin Complex, Mr. Prudhomme stated that the pipe in 

the c. 1905 photograph of the Gin Barn connected to 

the Seed House at the location of the still-existing 

galvanized nipple. On the interior of the Seed House, 

the galvanized fitting converted to a square wooden 

pipe running to approximately the middle of the Seed 

House. There, a tee valve fitting allowed the blown 

seed to be routed either to one of the two seed chutes 

on the west end of the building or to the main floor of 

the Seed House on the east end of the building. If 

diverted to the seed chutes, there was another valve 

that directed the seed to either of the two chutes. The 

arm and lever for this valve exists under the south 

seed chute. The floor of the Seed House is sloped 

from the middle of the building to the north and 

south. Both Mr. Prudhomme and Mr. Brown thought 

the sloped floor was to assist in obtaining a 

reasonable distribution of the seed in the main room 

of the Seed House. Mr. Prudhomme stated that the 

windows on the north and south sides of the building 

never had screens or sashes. They were for 

controlling dust, providing light, and, at times, 

shoveling seed into wagons from the side of the 

house. This would mean that, for moving plantation 

seed, wagons pulled up to either the north or south 

side of the Seed House to be filled with seed from the 

windows. Mr. Prudhomme stated that, at one time, 

the pit scale used to weigh wagonloads of cotton was 

Figure 19. Machine mountings southwest of Seed 

House. 
Physical Description 

42 Oakland Gin HSR 

Figure 21. Seed-handling valve, Munger Corporation 

Catalog, 1899. 

Figure 20. Valve at west chute, Munger Corporation 

Catalog, 1899. 

at the east end of the Seed House, set in the ground 

with the weighing apparatus located inside the Seed 

House. The scale was later moved to the Gin Barn 

and was in that location at the time the barn was 

demolished. 

When considering the age of the Seed House, the 

characteristics of the wood and the nails used in the 

structure were evaluated in conjunction with the 

historical information in this report. The larger, 

eastern part of the structure is hewn post and beam 

construction. The joints at the columns with the sill 

and top wall plates are of mortise-and-tenon 

construction. In the eastern part of the structure, 

wood pegs at the heavy timber joints were not found. 

Instead, wrought iron spikes were observed to secure 

the joint. The roof structure was circular sawn and 

nailed with wire nails. The historic roof sheathing 

was circular sawn, as well. Based on this information 

and the knowledge of the manual operation of the 

Seed House in loading seed from the north and south 

windows, it is believed that the eastern portion of the 

Seed House dates to the 1860 period of construction 

of the Gin Complex. 

The western 13’ addition to the Seed House is all 

circular sawn wood structure and finish material. 

The connections use wire nails. The c. 1905 

photograph of both the Gin Barn with seed pipe and 

the Seed House confirm that the Munger cotton 

processing system was installed at that time. The c. 

1905 photograph of the Seed House shows two vent 

stacks at the gable, one on each gable end of the main 

(east) portion of the building. In this photograph, the 

western part of the Seed House, which currently 

contains the chute, does not appear to be in place. 

This suggests that the Munger system was installed in 

the east portion of the building prior to the 

construction of the west addition and likely after the 

Seed House had been in operation for seed 

management using manpower to move seed into and 

out of the structure. This would place the installation 

of the Munger system sometime after 1885 when the 

system was developed and marketed and before 

1905, the date of the historic photograph. The west 

chute addition would then have been constructed 

after 1905. It seems likely that the construction of 

the west seed chute addition related either to the point 

in time when the Prud’hommes began or expanded 

ginning services to area farmers or to the installation 

of new equipment after the ginning operations were 

converted from steam to diesel power. 

Foundation Piers 

Historically, the perimeter piers of the Seed House 

were brick and wood. When the National Park 

Service acquired the property, the piers were in an 

advanced state of deterioration. New brick piers on 

reinforced concrete footings were constructed in 

1999. 

The interior piers were historically wooden piers on 

stone pads as well as brick piers. Wooden piers were 

beneath the floor joists, and brick piers were beneath 

the central and western sill beams. The wooden piers 

had deteriorated by the time the National Park 

Service acquired the property. These interior piers 

were replaced with new brick piers on concrete 

foundations under the center girder beam in the east 

portion of the structure and under the north heavy 

timber framed sill. Where historic stone foundations 

remained, they were retained, and new concrete 

masonry unit (CMU) piers were installed on them. 

Where no stone foundation pads remained and where 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 43

Figure 22. Seed House, south elevation. 

Figure 24. Typical perimeter Pier/ Post 1999. 

Figure 23. Seed House, west elevation. 

supplemental foundation support was deemed 

necessary by the Park Service staff, new concrete 

cinder pads and CMU piers were installed. All Seed 

House piers were fitted with galvanized caps for 

termite control by National Park Service staff. 

The layout of the historic piers relates to the 

evolution of the structure. The Seed House was 

constructed in two phases. The eastern, and oldest, 

part of the building, measuring approximately 30’ by 

36’, is constructed with an intermediate line of piers 

in the east-west direction 17’-4” from the north wall 

of the building. As a part of the National Park 

Service stabilization work, supplemental CMU piers 

on cinder block pads were installed at the mid-span 

of the south 8” by 8” floor joists. It is interesting to 

note that, historically, there was no pier under the 

center column of the eastern portion of the Seed 

House. The column rested on a 12” by 12” beam. 

This configuration has been retained in the recent 

National Park Service stabilization and rehabilitation 

work. 

The foundations for the west portion of the Seed 

House, constructed later than the east portion, include 

perimeter piers that have been reconstructed by Park 

Service staff with new brick on reinforced concrete 

foundations. There is no evidence that the support 

columns for the seed chute originally had any piers 

under them. This would have caused the bulk of the 

weight from the seed to be supported at mid-span of 

14’ beams, creating a likely condition for deflection, 

if not structural failure. A line of supplemental piers 

was installed by Park Service staff at approximately 

mid-span of the 14’ wide structure. The 

supplemental piers are parged brick on concrete 

footings. 

Structural System 

Floor Framing: The floor framing is different in each 

of the two sections of the Seed House. The 

components of the eastern part of the structure 

include 12” by 12” perimeter sill beams. Where 

sound, historic beams were retained in the 

stabilization and rehabilitation of the structure. 

However, the perimeter sill beams were replaced by 

Park Service staff the full length of the south side of 

the east structure. The east-most span of the north 

beam line and the south-most span of the west beam 

line were also replaced. These beams were replaced 

to match the dimensions of the historic beams. 

The interior framing of the eastern part of the Seed 

House is quite interesting. The interior framing 

layout is asymmetrical in plan and elevation. The 

interior floor beam runs east and west and is 17’-4” 

from the north beam line. The resulting south span of 

the floor system is 12’-10”. The north span has a 

slope of 51⁄2” of fall from the interior beam to the 

north wall and a slope of 11⁄2” of fall from the interior 

beam to the south wall. Clues that this was an 

intentional detail of the building are that the building 

eaves are at the same elevation above grade, and the 

characteristics of the interior east/west beam 

accommodate the slope. Both Tommy Brown, 

Continental Eagle historian, and Mr. Kenneth 

Prudhomme thought that the slope was intended to 

assist in distributing seed across the floor of the 

building. 

Historic floor joists in the eastern part of the Seed 

House are 8” by 8” and 10” by 10” hewn members 

set at varying spacing but, on average, about 4’ on 

center. The flooring of the Seed House originally 
Physical Description 

44 Oakland Gin HSR 

spanned from hewn joist to hewn joist. As a part of 

the National Park Service stabilization and 

rehabilitation of the structure, pressure treated 2” by 

10” members were sistered on both sides of each 

original hewn member with lag screws. 

Supplemental 2” by 10” members were installed 

between the hewn floor joists using galvanized joist 

hangers to achieve a span of approximately 16” on 

center. Two by ten inch spacers were also installed at 

the third points between each new joist. 

The floor framing of the west 14’ addition originally 

consisted of three 8” by 8” hewn beams at quarter 

points, with 7’-6” spans. The floor framing of the 

west addition was significantly altered in the National 

Park Service rehabilitation efforts. Supplemental 2” 

by 10” floor joists were installed at equal spans 

running east and west with the sawn joists to reduce 

the unsupported length of the flooring above. The 

new joists served also to level the flooring. Two by 

ten inch spacers were also installed at the third points 

of the span. Modification of the floor framing was 

designed to address deterioration of the existing 

historic framing members and the inadequacy of the 

historic framing pattern to accommodate desired 

loads on the floor above. However, to the extent 

possible, historic framing members, particularly floor 

beams, were retained. If the deterioration was such 

that they could not be retained, they were replaced inkind. The primary modification by the Park Service 

staff to the floor framing was the addition of 

intermediate joists to reduce the inordinately long 

spans for floorboards above. 

To evaluate the structural capacity of the floor 

framing system, the Seed House floor system was 

modeled in Visual Analysis 5.0 using structural 

elements defined by field observations and drawings 

from the National Park Service. The National Park 

Service has already performed rehabilitation of the 

Seed House, and most of the framing is comprised of 

new members, so evaluation was based on the 

existing, “repaired” condition. A structural analysis 

was performed on the floor system and checked for 

compliance with the 2000 International Building 

Code (IBC) based on flexure, shear, and deflection 

criteria. The General Management Plan for the Park 

designates the Seed House to “accommodate the 

park’s primary indoor maintenance functions.”89 

Conversations with Park personnel indicate that this 

is interpreted to mean that the Seed House will be 

used as an office and assembly area for maintenance 

personnel, though some carpentry equipment, such as 

the table saw that is currently in the Seed House, 

could remain in use. Since the Seed House will be 

used as an office, a minimum live load of 60 psf, was 

applied to the floor system. This is the load required 

by the International Building Code for office spaces. 

A dead load of 10 psf in addition to the actual 

member weights was also applied to the floor system. 

The results of this analysis show that in its existing 

configuration many framing members are not 

adequate for the intended use as required by current 

building codes. 

Discussions with on-site National Park Service staff 

at Oakland Plantation indicate that there are plans to 

add another layer of plywood sheathing to the floor. 

If this additional layer is added, the Seed House floor 

and its supporting members will be adequate for a 

live load of 60 psf, but not for an assembly load of 

100 psf. The additional flooring must have a 

minimum thickness of 3⁄4 inch and be securely 

fastened to the floor joists using minimum 10d 

common nails spaced no more than 16” on center. 

For the Seed House to function as office space per 

the Park’s General Management Plan without 

strengthening the floor framing system underneath, 

this additional plywood sheathing must be added to 

the floor. 

The Seed House was originally constructed using 

methods and materials typical for the period. The 

National Park Service made repairs to the facility 

based on the dimensions of the original construction. 

National Park Service personnel recognized some of 

the deficiencies of the original design with regard to 

the intended use of the structure by the Park and 

attempted to remedy them by installing 

supplementary framing. The minimum live load 

required for the intended use of the structure as an 

office is 60 psf. This is one and one-half times the 

amount allowed by the original framing methods. 

Additionally, the Phase II designation for this 

building is as an educational facility. What type of 

educational facility the Park intends to put in the 

 

89 National Park Service, Cane River Creole National 

Historical Park Draft General Management 

Plan/Environmental Impact Statement, Denver: U.S. 

Department of the Interior, 2001, p. 15. 

Figure 25. Interior framing of east wall. 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 45

Seed House is not determined. The floor framing 

members do not meet the standard of providing 100 

psf load required for assembly areas by current 

building codes. However, it does meet the current 

building code requirements of 40 psf for classrooms. 

Classrooms include students, desks, and chairs. Use 

of the Seed House for a classroom would not require 

any strengthening of the floor framing system to meet 

current building codes. 

Wall Framing: Like the foundations and floor 

framing, the wall framing differs in the eastern part 

of the Seed House from that in the western addition. 

The wall framing and top plate of the eastern section 

are hewn members. Field observations indicate some 

hewn members were reused. This is most notable on 

the top plate of the west wall framing of the eastern 

section, which show open, unused mortises. The wall 

framing on the north and south side of the eastern 

section of the Seed House is exposed on the exterior. 

The east wall framing is exposed on the interior. The 

framing of what was the west exterior wall before the 

expansion of the building is now an line of interior 

columns. The wall framing members on the east wall 

of the Seed House vary from 6” by 8” to 5” by 6”. 

There are four hewn posts to the north and south of 

the east door. The posts are connected to the sill and 

top plate by mortise and tenon joints. However, no 

wood pegs were observed. Instead, forged spikes 

were used to secure the joints. 

The wall framing on the south wall of the east section 

of the building is similar to that of the east wall 

except that it is exposed to the exterior from the east 

corner to the east jamb of Door 101. The spacing of 

the posts varies from 4’-8” to 5’-10”. Post sizes vary 

from 9” by 7” at the east corner to 3” by 51⁄4” at the 

east door jamb. West of Door 101 on the south side 

of the east section, the hewn wall framing posts are 

again on the interior. There are three posts between 

the west jamb of Door 101 and the southwest corner 

of the east section of the building. 

The west framing columns of the east section were, 

prior to the construction of the west addition, part of 

an exterior wall. Including the corner posts, there are 

seven posts in this column line. As on the other three 

sides of the east part of the building, the size of the 

posts varies considerably. This variation is a strong 

indication that the eastern part of the Seed House was 

constructed with some reused materials. This 

conjecture is further supported by the vacant mortises 

on the topside of the top plate of the framing in this 

column line. The vertical support above the top plate 

to the ridge is a hewn member, as is the 

corresponding ridge support on the east wall. 

The wall framing for the entire north wall of the east 

section of the building is exposed to the exterior. Its 

characteristics are similar to the other three walls of 

the east section. Posts on the eastern section of the 

building vary from 4” by 3” to 6” by 3”. Spacing of 

the posts is random and varies between 2’-6” and 4’-

6”. 

The western 14’ addition is uniform in the 

characteristics of its framing members. The framing 

members of the addition are all circular sawn, truedimension lumber. The historic single 2” by 4” roof 

framing was deteriorated by the time the National 

Park Service acquired the property. When it was 

reconstructed by the Park Service in recent 

stabilization and rehabilitation activities it was 

determined that the single 2” by 4” members were 

structurally inadequate. Therefore, the roof framing 

was changed to two 2” by 4” joists in place of the 

single joists. 

Structurally, the wall framing and connections appear 

to be adequate for the intended use of the building. 

No further modifications to the wall framing are 

required to provide normal structural strength and 

stability. 

Roof Framing: The roof framing of the eastern 

portion of the building is 2” by 6” circular-sawn 

rafters at approximately 30” on center. The framing 

extends from the north and south walls to a ridge 

beam composed of three 2” by 6” boards stacked in 

their short dimension. The roof framing on the 

western portion of the building is 2” by 4” truedimension rafters. The unsupported span of the ridge 

beam is reduced by bracing the interior column in the 

eastern section of the building. The bracing is an 

assembly of two 2” by 6” and one 11⁄2” by 6” sawn 

members. These members appear to be straight 

sawn, with an angled pit-sawn saw mark 

characteristic. However, these saw marks are not 

found elsewhere in the building. This suggests that 

these members, like many others, if not most, in the 

Figure 26. Detail of roof framing. 
Physical Description 

46 Oakland Gin HSR 

building were reused from other earlier structures. 

Supporting the rafters at midpoints of every other 

roof rafter are 21⁄2” by 5” hand- hewn collar beams. 

The roof sheathing is extant 4/4” by 12” boards and 

new 4/4” by 12” cypress sheathing boards that 

replaced deteriorated historic boards deemed 

structurally inadequate by the Park Service staff. The 

roof sheathing is laid with a 1” to 2” gap supporting 

building felt, insulation board, and the metal panel 

roofing above. The sheathing is in its historic 

location. 

The structure of the south shed roof was 

reconstructed by the National Park Service staff using 

new, rough-sawn cypress cross ties and pressure 

treated 2” by 4” rafters. New 3⁄4” by 12” sheathing 

boards were installed to support the metal panel 

roofing. 

The entire structure for the west shed over the seed 

chute was reconstructed by the National Park Service 

staff in the stabilization phase of improvements. To 

address an inherent structural deficiency in the 

historic framing, three diagonal braces were also 

installed to supplement the original framing 

configuration. 

The existing east shed roof structure was repaired, 

and the historic metal roofing panels were reinstalled 

by National Park Service staff. 

Roofing Assembly: The historic roofing assembly 

included metal roofing panels on 4/4” sheathing. The 

stabilization and rehabilitation work performed by 

the National Park Service on the main roof, both the 

east and the west sections, modified that historic 

assembly by adding a layer of roofing felt on top of 

the sheathing, a 11⁄2” layer of rigid insulation, a 

second layer of 30# roofing felt, and a layer of 

waterproofing membrane underlayment (Ice and 

Water Shield) between the sheathing and the historic 

metal panels. This assembly modification was made 

to facilitate the adaptive use of the building for 

facility management. The roofing material on the 

main building is a mixture 11⁄2” corrugated and 5V 

profile metal panels. 

The north shed roofing is historic 2” corrugated metal 

panels on the extant structure. On the south shed, new 

2” corrugated roofing has been installed, as the old 

roofing materials on this shed had been lost. New 

5V-profile metal panels have been installed on the 

west shed. The east shed was reconstructed using 

existing 5V-profile metal roofing. 

Structurally, the existing roof assembly is in excellent 

condition. The metal panels are in good condition. 

No further modifications are required to the roof 

assembly to provide normal structural strength and 

stability. 

Doors 

At the time the National Park Service acquired the 

property, only the eastern 8’ long horizontal sliding 

door existed. This door has now been fixed in place 

on the remains of its steel track hardware by Park 

Service staff. All door openings in the Seed House 

are in their historic locations. At the time of this 

report, all door openings had been fitted with 

temporary, unfinished 3⁄4” plywood doors with 1” by 

4” nominal bracing, except for the doors on the east 

facade, which have 1” by 6” nominal bracing. The 

Design Analysis for the Seed House indicates that 

permanent exterior doors will be made of 13⁄4” 

cypress planks with horizontal back battens. Interior 

doors are planned to be of similar character but of 

planed-finish yellow pine. 

The hardware on the temporary doors consists of 

modern, galvanized strap hinges and wooden, sitebuilt door handles. 

Door 100: The opening is 6’-11⁄2” by 8’-0 1/16”. The 

original sliding door is fixed adjacent to the opening. 

The original door is plank and batten construction 

and has 4/4” by 51⁄2” perimeter and diagonal bracing. 

Two temporary plywood, hinged, out-swinging doors 

with 1” by 6” nominal bracing have been installed in 

the historic east door opening by Park Service staff. 

There are two 3’ by 7’ custom-fabricated in-swinging 

screen doors installed on the interior part the 

doorframe. The casing is Type 1. There is no 

threshold at this opening. 

Door 101: The frame opening is 3’-8” by 7’-4”. 

There are two pintles on the western jamb of this 

opening, features from an earlier door. Door 101 is 

constructed of 3⁄4” plywood with 1” by 4” nominal 

bracing and is mounted on the eastern jamb of the 

opening. There are three new steps constructed as 

part of the National Park Service stabilization work 

Figure 27. Door 100 

Note sliding door adjacent to opening.
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 47

leading to this door. They are constructed of 8” risers 

and 11” treads to two 2” by 12” stringers. The head 

of the doorframe is Type 3, and the jamb is Type 2. 

There is no threshold at this opening. 

Door 102: The frame opening is 3’-0 7/8” by 7’-

31⁄2”. Door 102 is constructed of 3⁄4” plywood with 1” 

by 4” nominal bracing. There is no physical 

evidence of an earlier door in this opening. The head 

of the doorframe is Type 2, and the jamb is Type 3. 

There is no threshold for this opening. 

Door 103: This door and opening were under 

construction at the time of the site visit for this report. 

The rough opening is 3’-2 1/16” by 7’-0”. There was 

no frame, threshold, or door associated with this 

opening at the time of the preparation of this report. 

However, the National Park Service Design Analysis 

for the stabilization and rehabilitation of the Seed 

House indicates that the door will be constructed of 

11⁄2” planed yellow pine planks with interior battens. 

Door 104: At the time of the preparation of this 

report, there was no frame, threshold, or door for this 

opening. The rough opening is 2’-5-1/2” 

Door 104: At the time of the preparation of this 

report, there was no frame, threshold, or door for this 

opening. The rough opening is 2’-51⁄2” by 7’-10”. 

The Design Analysis for the stabilization and 

rehabilitation of the Seed House indicates that the 

door will be constructed of 4/4” planed yellow pine 

planks with interior battens 

Windows 

The windows in the Seed House are on the north and 

south elevations of the east part of the structure. The 

windows did not originally have frames or sashes. 

Each has bottom-hinged, board-and-batten shutters. 

The shutters are constructed of four 4/4” horizontal 

wood planks of various widths with modern, 

galvanized strap hinges. At the time of the initial site 

visit for this report, all but one of the windows was 

fitted with an aluminum screen framed on plywood 

applied to the interior side of the window opening for 

pest/insect protection. In the winter of 2003, the 

National Park Service staff installed non-historic, 

interior, in-swinging casement windows with 

Plexiglas on five of the six windows in the east 

section of the Seed House. The National Park 

Service plans to install screens between the interior 

casement sashes and the historic shutters. These 

modifications are in response to the planned adaptive 

use of the structure for facility management. 

In his description of the Seed House, Mr. Kenneth 

Prudhomme stated that the windows were for dust 

control and light, but, at times, were used as access to 

shovel seed into wagons. In his memory, there were 

never frames or sashes in the windows. It is probable 

that the windows were used prior to and, in some 

cases, after, the Munger system was installed to load 

wagons transporting seed. 

Window 100: The opening is 4’-8” by 2’-5”. The 

dimension between the two adjacent wall 

framing posts defines the width of the window 

opening. 

Window 101: The opening is 4’-51⁄2” by 2’-101⁄2”. 

The dimension between the two adjacent wall 

framing posts defines the width of the window 

opening. 

Window 102: The opening is 2’-2” by 2’-8”. 

This window is notably smaller than the other 

windows in the east section of the Seed House and is 

in close proximity to the seed hopper. Its shutter is 

fixed shut due to the installation of a utility closet on 

the interior of the main structure. It appears that the 

Figure 28. Door 101. Figure 29. Door 102. 

Figure 33. Head and 

Jamb 3.

Figure 32. Jamb 2.

Figure 30. Head 2. 

Figure 31. Head and Jamb 1 
Physical Description 

48 Oakland Gin HSR 

Figure 38. Window 103 

Figure 34. Window 100 

Figure 35. Window 101 

Figure 36. Window 102 

Figure 40. Seed Chute Shutters 

function of this opening was originally somewhat 

different than the other windows in the east section of 

the Seed House due to its size and close proximity to 

the corner of the building. 

Window 103: The opening is 3’-2” by 3’-91⁄2”. 

The dimension between the two adjacent wall 

framing posts defines the width of the window 

opening. 

Window 104: The opening is 4’-4” by 2’-8”. The 

dimension between the two adjacent wall framing 

posts defines the width of the window opening. 

Window 105: This window is irregularly shaped 

and is temporarily covered in plywood. 

Seed Chute Shutters: There are two top-hinged seed 

chute shutters of 4/4” by 8” vertical boards 

approximately 40” in length. The shutters have two 

battens on the inside. The historic boards have been 

reused in the reconstruction of these shutters by 

National Park Service staff, with in-kind materials 

replacing deteriorated or missing pieces. 

Exterior Finish Materials and Characteristics 

North Elevation: On the north elevation of the east 

section of the Seed House, the building is enclosed 

by horizontal plank siding installed on 

the inside of the wall framing. The wall framing and 

plank siding are exposed on the exterior but are 

somewhat protected from the elements by the north 

shed roof. The siding on the west 14’ portion of the 

north elevation is 1” by 8” clapboard siding with a 

61⁄2” exposure. The siding in this area appears to be 

mostly historic with new in-kind materials installed 

by Park Service staff to replace deteriorated or 

missing siding. 

East Elevation: The east elevation is sided with 4/4” 

by 8” clapboard siding with a 6” exposure. The 

siding on this elevation is, for the most part, historic. 

Missing boards on this elevation were replaced by 

Park Service staff with the limited amount of sound 

siding available from the west elevation. 

South Elevation: From Door 101 east (most of the 

east section of the building), there is no siding on the 

exterior. The wall framing is exposed on the exterior. 

From Door 101 to the joint between the east and west 

portions of the building, the siding is vertical 4/4” by 

12” planks. From the joint between the east and west 

portions of the building to the west end of the south 

wall, the siding is 4/4” by 8” lap siding with a 61⁄2” 

exposure. 

West Elevation: The west elevation is 4/4” by 8” 

Figure 37. Window 104 

Figure 39. Window 105 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 49

Figure 43. Detail of roof rafters and sheathing, west end. 

clapboard siding with a 61⁄2” exposure. This material 

is new, but was installed by Park Service staff to 

match the historic siding in dimension and species. 

There is a shelf framed on the exterior of the seed 

chute to divert seed into wagons. This shelf is 

constructed of boards framed at an angle off the side 

of the west elevation. The clapboard siding extends 

up behind the shelf to enclose the wall. 

Corner Boards: There are 4/4” by 51⁄2” corner boards 

located on each side of each of the four corners of the 

Seed House. These were installed by National Park 

Service staff as part of the rehabilitation work at the 

Seed House. There was no physical evidence of 

earlier corner boards prior to those installed by the 

National Park Service. 

Interior Finish Materials and Characteristics 

Ceiling/ Underside of Roof 

The eastern section of the interior of the Seed House 

has exposed 2” by 6” circular sawn roof rafters and 

wood roof sheathing. Historically, the metal roofing 

panels were exposed to the interior through the gaps 

between the roof sheathing. However, new building 

felt installed above the sheathing by National Park 

Service staff is visible from the interior of the 

building. 

The western portion of the interior, over the seed 

chute, has double 2” by 4” circular sawn rafters that 

replaced the single 2” by 4” rafters that were in place 

at the time the National Park Service took possession 

of the property. The double rafters were installed in 

1999 at the recommendation of the Denver Service 

Center Engineer. The height of the interior from the 

floor to the top plate of the wall framing is 

approximately 10’ - 7”. The distance from the top 

plate to the ridge beam is 7’-5 5/8”, resulting in an 

overall interior height from the floor to the ridge of 

18’. The roof sheathing of 4/4” by 12” boards spaced 

with a 1” to 2” gap is historic. New building felt 

installed above the sheathing by Park Service staff is 

visible from the interior of the building. 

Flooring

Plywood flooring measuring 3⁄4” by 4’ by 8’ is 

installed over the rehabilitated and supplemented 

floor framing throughout the Seed House. The 

present plywood flooring is intended to be a subflooring in the completed rehabilitation work. The 

planned finished floor is to be 3⁄4” plywood sheets cut 

into 12” wide strips to suggest the 12’ plank flooring 

originally used in the building. The Design Analysis 

indicates the presence of 4/4” by 12” plank flooring 

that no longer exists. 

Figure 41. Detail of exterior siding, east elevation. 

Figure 42. Detail of exterior siding, south elevation. Note the 

differing materials on either side of the door. 
Physical Description 

50 Oakland Gin HSR 

Figure 46. Interior finishes, southeast corner. 

Figure 45. Interior finishes, southwest corner. 

Figure 44. Floor detail. 

Walls 

North Wall: The east end of the north wall is 

horizontal, butt jointed 4/4” by 12” boards on the 

interior surface. The north interior wall has been 

substantially modified by the National Park Service 

from the historic wall assembly. The new wall 

assembly retains the historic exterior characteristics 

of the horizontal siding behind the exposed wall 

posts. On the inside of the exterior plank siding, a 

vapor barrier has been installed. On the inside of the 

vapor barrier is 3⁄4” rigid insulation board, then a 1⁄2” 

layer of Homosote, a 1⁄4” airspace, and the new, 

interior horizontal plank siding of dimensions 

matching the historic siding. The additional wall 

assembly is made possible by the installation of a 

11⁄2” vertical furring strip on the inside of each wall 

framing post. 

South Wall: The east end of the south wall contains 

butt jointed 4/4” by 12” boards on the interior 

surface. The south wall in the area where the wall 

framing posts are exposed to the exterior is the same 

as that on the north wall. 

The wall finish at the west end of the south wall, like 

the other exterior walls in the rehabilitated building, 

was modified from the historic assembly by the 

National Park Service. Historically, the interior of 

the wall was the exposed backside of the exterior 

clapboard siding. The modified wall assembly is 

designed to reduce moisture and wind infiltration in 

the building and to improve insulation for human 

occupancy in its facility management function. The 

modified wall section includes a vapor barrier on the 

inside of the clapboard siding, a layer of batt 

insulation supported by 2” by 4” studs and a 1⁄2” layer 

of Homosote exposed on the interior. This assembly 

is spaced to allow the timber wall framing to be 

exposed on the interior. building, was modified from 

the historic assembly by the National Park Service. 

Historically, the interior of the wall was the exposed 

backside of the exterior clapboard siding. The 

modified wall assembly is designed to reduce 

moisture and wind infiltration in the building and to 

improve insulation for human occupancy in its 

facility management function. The modified wall 

section includes a vapor barrier on the inside of the 

clapboard siding, a layer of batt insulation supported 

by 2” by 4” studs and a 1⁄2” layer of Homosote 

exposed on the interior. This assembly is spaced to 

allow the timber wall framing to be exposed on the 

interior. 

East Wall: The east wall is similar to the historic and 

modified assembly of the west end of the south wall. 

West Wall: The west wall is similar to the historic 

and modified assembly of the west end of the south 

wall. 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 51

Figure 49. Transition from 1899 Munger Catalog, 

Continental Eagle, Inc., Prattville, AL. 

Figure 48. Transition fitting located on south elevation. 

Figure 47. Interior finish of north wall. 

Other Historic Features 

Several historic seed-handling features of the Seed 

House have been retained. While they do not 

represent a complete assembly of the seed 

management process in the Seed House, they do 

provide interesting components from which one can 

gain some understanding of the operation of the 

Munger seed management equipment that was 

operated in the Seed House at Oakland Plantation.

Seed Intake Transition Fitting 

at South Elevation

On the south side of the Seed House, to the west of 

center and under the shed roof, is a square to round 

galvanized transition fitting. This indicates the Seed 

House connecting point of the Munger seed transport 

pipe extending from the Gin Barn as shown in the c. 

1905 photograph with the barn in the background. 

The location of the fitting is consistent with the 

characteristics in the historic photograph of the Gin 

Barn. It is known that the there was not a shed on the 

south side of the Seed House prior to 1905 from the 

c. 1905 photograph of the Seed House. There was a 

clear route for the seed pipe to travel from the Gin 

Barn to the Seed House and make the connection 

with the Seed House at the location of the existing 

fitting. The 1899 Munger catalog shows a fitting that 

matches the fitting on the side of the Seed House, 

confirming that it was a part of the Munger system. 

The transition fitting is galvanized metal and is in 

good condition due, in part, to having later been 

protected from the elements by the addition of the 

south shed roof. 

Seed Chute 

There are two seed chutes at the west end of the Seed 

House. The west expansion of the building was to 

accommodate a seed hopper. Six 6” by 6” circular 

sawn wooden columns on 2” by 8” framing that 

spans the columns and wall framing in the west wall 

of the Seed House support the seed chute. Two by 

six inch framing members spanning north to south 

above the 6” by 6” columns support the floor of the 

chute. The interior walls of the chute are vertical lap 

siding configured to encourage the movement of the 

seed from the chute through the chute doors and to 

the wagons. The chute floor sheathing is varied in 

size and age and ranged from aged 2” by 7” boards to 

some new 4/4” by 11” boards. The plank floor is butt 

jointed together with a 45 degree bevel. 

Wooden Munger Seed Pipe and Iron Valve Lever 

In the center of the west end of the building and 

extending from the hopper to the framing at the 

transition between the east and west portions of the 

building is an approximately 12” by 12” square 

wooden pipe. This pipe is one of only two remaining 

components of the Munger seed transport system 
Physical Description 

52 Oakland Gin HSR 

Figure 50. Chute feeder pipe. 

Figure 51. Two views of remaining equipment from Munger 

system stored at Oakland Plantation. 

remaining in the Seed House. The other feature is the 

valve lever arm mounted below the south seed chute. 

A number of the Munger system seed handling 

components were in the Seed House at the time the 

National Park Service acquired the property. These 

components are now stored in the shed behind the 

Main House. It is very likely that, with the 

number of existing historic Munger components 

already in the possession of the National Park 

Service, much of the Seed House Munger system 

could be reinstalled for interpretation. 

Seed House Gutters 

An examination of the c. 1905 photograph of the 

Seed House with the wagon in the foreground shows 

what appears to be a gutter system on the south side 

of the Seed House tied to an overhead trough or pipe 

extending in the direction of the Gin Barn and 

Cistern. The gutters appear to slope to a conductorhead like feature that is connected to the pipe. This 

photograph suggests the roof of the Seed House was 

used to supply rainwater to the Cistern. This 

observation must be qualified by the characteristics 

of the other c. 1905 photograph with the bale of 

cotton in the foreground and the Gin Barn in the 

background. This photograph shows the seed pipe but 

does not indicate any type of gutter feature that 

would be in the foreground of this photograph based 

on the observations of the Seed House photograph. 

The ultimate destination of the gutters on the Seed 

House in this photograph is unknown. 

Modern Additions 

The following features are part of the adaptive use 

program instituted by the National Park Service for 

the building and are all non-historic features. They 

are positioned on either side of the seed hopper, 

which is the most significant interpretative 

component in the Seed House. 

Restroom: At the time of the site visit for this report, 

a restroom was being framed in the northwest corner 

of the Seed House. Only the rough framing was in 

place. The framing extends to 9’ in height, not the 

full height of the building. The location of the 

restroom is on the side of the building closest to 

where the utilities enter the site. This feature does 

not contribute to the historic character of the building 

and, indeed, impedes understanding of the historic 

remnants of the seed-handling system on the west 

end of the building. 

 

Storage Room: To the east of the restroom and 

adjacent to it, 2” by 4” framing to 9’ in height for a 

small storage was also in place at the time of the 

initial site visit for this report. This room is also part 

of the adaptive use program instituted by the National 

Park Service for this building. This feature does not 

contribute to the historic character of the building. 

Storage Lockers: A series of 8’-tall storage lockers 

are positioned in the southwest corner of the Seed 

House. It appears that they are not attached in any 

significant or damaging way to the building, thereby 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 53

Figure 53. Utility Yard.

Figure 52. Framing for restroom and storage room in Seed 

House. 

being reversible should their removal be desired in 

the future. Due to the stabilization and rehabilitation 

completed to date, the Seed House is in excellent 

condition. While the adaptive use modifications 

made for the facility management operations have 

introduced non-historic features, overall, the volume 

of the building, its exterior finishes, and the 

remaining components of the seed handling apparatus 

are intact, allowing interpretation of the building 

while achieving functional operational use of the 

building.

UTILITY YARD 

There were no utilities in the building at the time of 

the site visit. An extension cord from a groundmounted power pedestal on the west side of the 

building was powering the lights and a fan inside the 

building. However, it appeared that the building was 

being readied for power, water, and sewer service. 

The collection of site utility features to the west of 

the building appear to be in place to support the 

adaptive use planned for the structure by the National 

Park Service. Overall, these features are low to the 

ground and present as low a profile as can be 

expected. 

PAINT ANALYSIS 

The finishes on the Seed House are unpainted. None 

of the existing features on the Gin Complex site are 

painted. Therefore, a paint analysis was not done for 

the Seed House or the remaining Gin Complex site 

features. 

ELECTRICAL EVALUATION 

There was no existing electrical service in the Seed 

House at the time the National Park Service acquired 

the property. All utilities currently servicing the Seed 

House have been installed by the National Park 

Service. Underground electrical service with padmounted transformer and meter was installed. The 

electrical service for the Seed House currently 

consists of the following (as of the writing of this 

report): 

Interior: 

• An extension cord runs from the new meter 

outlet, utilizing a 30A circuit breaker, to the structure. 

• Surface/pendant mounted incandescent light 

fixtures are mounted on the bottom of the roof 

structure beams and connected together with 

extension cords. 

Exterior: 

• The main disconnect switch, with no rated 

voltage and current shown on the label. 

• A pump disconnect switch for the new 

wastewater pump, with no rated voltage and current 

shown on the label. 

• A waste water pump and control panel. 

• 3⁄4” PVC Sch. 40 underground service entrance 

conduit to main disconnect switch. 

• Conduits, elbow connections, and fittings 

between the disconnect switches and wastewater 

pump inadequately supported. 

The existing electrical service is inadequate for future 

use of the Seed House as a workshop or maintenance 

facility and does not comply with current National 

Electrical Code requirements and standards. It is 

understood that this electrical system is intended by 

the Park Service to be temporary and will be 

upgraded in the future. 
Physical Description 

54 Oakland Gin HSR 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 55 

Bibliography 

Breedlove, Carolyn. “Bermuda/Oakland Plantation, 

1830-1880.” Unpublished masters thesis. 

Northwestern State University of Louisiana, 

1999. 

Britton, Karen Gerhardt. Bale o’ Cotton, The 

Mechanical Art of Cotton Ginning. College 

Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992. 

Census Records of the United States, Seventh through 

Tenth, and Twelfth through Fifteenth, 1850, 

1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930, 

Population Schedules, Natchitoches Parish, 

Louisiana. Reviewed online at Ancestry.com. 

2001 and 2002. 

Deblieux, Robert B. “Cane River Country, ‘La Cote 

Joyeuse’ and Kisatchie National Forest. An 

Auto Guide to the Historically and 

Architecturally Important Plantations of Creole 

Origins and a Guide to the vistas, Hiking Trails 

and Flora of the Forest of Natchitoches Parish. 

Natchitoches: The Natchitoches Times, 1993. 

DeBlieux, Robert B. “Natchitoches – A Guide to the 

Historically and Architecturally Important 

Buildings in the Historic District. Natchitoches: 

The Natchitoches Times, 1989. 

Firth, Ian, Professor, School of Environmental 

Design, University of Georgia at Athens. Oral 

interview with Deborah Harvey, September 9, 

2002. 

Firth, Ian. “Cultural Landscape Report – Oakland 

Plantation.” Draft manuscript undertaken for the 

National Park Service, unpublished. 

Ford, Eric Z. Design Analysis – Rehabilitation of the 

Seed House for Adaptive Reuse, Oakland 

Plantation. Natchez: National Park Service, 

U.S. Department of the Interior, 2001. 

Fortier, Alcee, ed. “Jacques Alphonse Prud’homme,” 

Louisiana, Comprising Sketches of Counties, 

Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons 

Arranged in Cyclopedic Form, Atlanta: Southern 

Historical Association, 1909. 

Fricker, Jonathan. National Register of Historic 

Places – Oakland Plantation Addendum. 

 National Register of Historic Places, 1989. 

Malone, Ann Patton, Ph.D. Series of oral history 

interviews conducted between 1996-1997 with 

members of the extended Prud’homme family 

and their workers. Individual citation states 

name of interviewee. 

Malone, Ann Patton, Ph.D. “Oakland Plantation, Its 

People’s Testimony.” Draft of oral history 

project. Unpublished. 1998. 

National Park Service. Cane River Creole National 

Historical Park Draft General Management 

Plan/Environmental Impact Statement, Denver: 

U.S. Department of the Interior, 2001. 

Pace, Seneca. “Daily Record of Passing Events on 

Prud’homme Plantation, 1860,” Prud’homme 

Family Papers, Series 3.1.5, Plantation Journals 

and Records, 1788-1997, Southern Historical 

Collection, Wilson Library, University of North 

Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

Prud’homme, Alphonse. Farm journals for 1866, 

Prud’homme Family Papers, Series 3.1.5, 

Plantation Journals and Records, 1788-1997, 

Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, 

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North 

Carolina. 

Prudhomme, Mrs. James Alphonse (Lucile K.), and 

Mr. and Mrs. R. L. Williamson. National 

Register of Historic Places Inventory – 

Nomination Form. National Register of Historic 

Places, 1978. 

Prudhomme, Kenneth. Oral interview with Mr. Jack 

Pyburn, AIA, of The Office of Jack Pyburn, 

Architect, Inc., 2003. 

Prudhomme, Mrs. Lucile K., comp. “Prud’hommeKeator Family Bible.” Genealogical information 

entered by Lucile Keator Prud’homme on the 

Prud’homme and Lambre families. 

Prudhomme, Mrs. Lucile K., comp. “The 

Prud’homme Family” Genealogical information 

on the descendants of Jean Pierre Phillippe 

Prud’homme and his wife, Catherine Mesilier. 

Unpublished. 
Bibliography 

56 Oakland Gin HSR 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 57 

Drawings 
Drawings 

58 Oakland Gin HSR 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 59
Drawings 

60 Oakland Gin HSR 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 61
Part I: Developmental History 

62 Oakland Gin HSR 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 63
Drawings 

64 Oakland Gin HSR 
Part I: Developmental History 

National Park Service 65
Drawings 

66 Oakland Gin HSR 
National Park Service 

PART II: TREATMENT AND USE 
Oakland Gin HSR 
National Park Service 69 

Treatment and Use 

The Seed House is the primary structure remaining 

from the last of three gin complexes on Oakland 

Plantation. Other surviving features include the 

Cistern, gin-related machinery foundations, and 

portions of the seed handling equipment. During the 

period of economic viability of cotton production, the 

gin was the mechanical heart of the plantation. With 

the loss of the Gin Barn and the ginning machinery, 

the Seed House takes on added significance as the 

visual feature with which ginning can be interpreted. 

The General Management Plan (GMP) for the park 

has assigned the adaptive use of indoor maintenance 

to the Seed House in Phase One of the plan 

implementation. Under Phase Two of the GMP, the 

Seed House is to be used for educational functions. 

The timing for the introduction of educational 

functions and the specific scope of the educational 

functions are not defined in the GMP. However, the 

approach to treatment of the Seed House should be 

determined by its proposed ultimate use. 

Before this Historic Structure Report was undertaken, 

the Seed House had received significant 

modifications to accommodate the maintenance 

functions that it was assigned. These treatments are 

outlined in detail in the September 2001 Design 

Analysis written by the National Park Service. The 

structure had been stabilized with new piers, the floor 

leveled with sistered supplementary framing to the 

original floor beams, and the original wall framing 

was stabilized and insulated. Two non-historic 

rooms are being added to the interior: a storage room 

and a restroom that meets the Americans with 

Disabilities Act (ADA) standards (at this time, the 

building is not ADA accessible). Due to extensive 

restoration and rehabilitation treatments that have 

already been undertaken, it is difficult for the average 

visitor to visually discern which remaining 

components of the building are original. 

It is presumed that the current appearance of the 

exterior of the Seed House is similar to the 1960 

appearance. This is the designated end of the Period 

of Significance. It appears that the original framing, 

seed hopper, and wood pipe on the west end of the 

structure are the most significantly intact components 

of the building. Given the extent of modifications 

made for the proposed adaptive use of the Seed 

House, focus on the remaining historically significant 

components will be of limited value. 

Requirements for Use 

The requirements for converting the Seed House 

from a support building for cotton production to a 

National Park Service management and maintenance 

facility have resulted in significant building 

modifications. The treatment of the Seed House 

appears to have been accomplished with 

consideration of its historic character but with limited 

information regarding its relationship to the larger 

Gin Complex. With limited information, particularly 

archeological, on the Gin Complex, the rehabilitation 

and adaptive use decisions could not take into 

account the effect of the rehabilitation actions on 

understanding and interpreting the larger complex. 

Field observations suggest that the management and 

maintenance functions to be housed by the Seed 

House will include wood fabrication, finish tool 

storage, limited material storage, and staff restrooms 

and lockers. The shed roofs on the sides of the main 

structure are providing weather protection for 

equipment and some supplies. The management and 

maintenance function will require adequate floor 

loading capacity for the weight of equipment and 

material to be accommodated in the building. The 

single unisex restroom will likely suffice for the 

occupancy of the building in its proposed Phase One 

use. ADA compliant accessibility is currently not 

provided to the building, but will be required. 

Requirements for an educational use of the Seed 

House are considerably different from the 

maintenance use. For educational purposes, the 

retention of historically significant features for 

interpretation is more important. Restroom facility 

requirements are more demanding. However, there is 

no plan to add a second restroom to this building 

when it is converted to an educational use. 

Presumably, lighting and interpretative support will 

then be desired. Accessibility from parking to the 

main Seed House room will be more critical. 

Requirements for Treatment 

Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act 

(NHPA) mandates that federal agencies, including 

the National Park Service, take into account the 

effects of their actions on properties listed in or 

eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic 

Places (NRHP) and give the Advisory Council on 

Historic Preservation a reasonable opportunity to 
70 Oakland Gin HSR 

comment on proposed treatments. NHPA regulations 

(36 CFR 800.10) mandate special requirements for 

the protection of National Historic Landmarks. 

Section 110(f) of the Act requires that the Agency 

Official, to the maximum extent possible, undertake 

such planning and actions as may be necessary to 

minimize harm to any National Historic Landmark 

that may be directly and adversely affected by any 

undertaking. The National Park Service’s “Cultural 

Resource Management Guideline” (DO 28) requires 

planning for the protection of cultural resources 

whether or not they relate to the specific authorizing 

legislation or interpretive programs of the parks in 

which they lie. The Seed House should be 

understood in its own cultural context and managed 

in light of its own value, relative to the Gin Complex 

of which it was originally a part, as well as to 

Oakland Plantation as a whole, so that it may be 

preserved and rehabilitated, unimpaired, for the 

enjoyment of present and future generations. To help 

guide compliance with these statutes and regulations, 

the Secretary of the Interior has issued Standards for 

the Treatment of Historic Properties. The National 

Park Service’s Preservation Briefs also provide 

detailed guidelines for appropriate treatment of a 

variety of materials, features, and conditions found in 

historic buildings. 

The primary component of the National Park Service 

mission for the Seed House is to implement an 

adaptive use for the building that respects its historic 

integrity. Understanding the history of the buildings 

and structures that comprised the ginning function of 

Oakland Plantation is key to the proper treatment and 

use of the Seed House. It was in recognition of both 

the historic integrity and significance of Oakland 

Plantation that the National Park Service wrote the 

General Management Plan for its care. The General 

Management Plan discusses several use alternatives 

for the Seed House. In all but one of the alternatives, 

the proposed use of the Seed House is to house 

facility management operations during the first phase 

of park operations. Upon completion of Phase One, 

the Seed House will be adapted for use as an 

educational facility during the second phase of park 

operations. 

When the National Park Service acquired the Seed 

House, it was in a deteriorated state due to age, 

animal and insect infestation, invasive vegetation, 

and general neglect. In 1999, the building underwent 

stabilization and preservation treatments by the 

Historic Preservation Training Center (HPTC) and 

Cane River Creole National Historic Park (CARI). 

Most of these treatments are discussed in the 

“Chronology of Development and Use” and the 

“Physical Description” sections of this report. In 

September 2001, the National Park Service wrote a 

Design Analysis on the seed house entitled 

Rehabilitation of the Seed House for Adaptive Reuse 

– Oakland Plantation. The purpose of this Design 

Analysis and Description was to present the existing 

condition of the building and the measures needed to 

rehabilitate it for the proposed Phase One adaptive 

use. This report did not address the Phase Two 

proposed use for education and the implications of 

Phase One improvements on the Phase Two use. 

The report notes that many of the identified 

treatments and modifications were completed as part 

of the 1999 efforts of HPTC and CARI. Those 

completed include the rehabilitation of existing 

building features, as well as the replacement of 

deteriorated features with in-kind materials. The 

features that were modified for the adaptive use 

comprised most of the building and include the 

foundation piers, floor, wall and roof framing, gabled 

and shed roofing materials, and portions of the 

exterior wall finishes. The report also recommended 

other treatments including installing insulation and 

vapor barriers in the walls and roof, new sub-flooring 

and finished flooring, new interior plank walls where 

needed, new windows, and new doors. Some of 

these treatments were underway at the time of the 

initial site visit for the preparation of this Historic 

Structure Report. 

While the Federal Government is not bound by state 

and local building codes, the National Park Service 

typically respects their existence. In doing so, they 

consider the relationship of all proposed 

modifications to state and local codes, where 

applicable. The identified local codes in 

Natchitoches Parish include: 

• Building Code: 2000 International Building 

Code (IBC) 

• Electrical Code: National Electrical Code (NEC) 

• Mechanical Code: International Plumbing Code 

(IPC), International Mechanical Code (IMC)

• Fire Protection Code: National Fire Protection 

Code (NFPC) 

 

It is not clear if the Seed House modifications made 

to date have undergone a review for state and local 

code compliance. 

Structural analysis of augmented floor framing of the 

Seed House’s indicates that, according to modern 

building codes, the current framing is not adequate to 

support maintenance and storage such as that 

observed in the structure during the site investigation 

visits in 2002 and 2003. Conversations with Park 

personnel indicate that the intended use of the 

building is as an office and assembly area for 

maintenance personnel at the Park. In addition, the 

Phase II proposed use as an educational facility may 

require greater load capacity than currently exists at 
National Park Service 71

the Seed House, depending on the type of educational 

facility. It is necessary to further strengthen the floor 

framing of the Seed House to accommodate its 

current use as a maintenance and light carpentry 

facility. It may be necessary to strengthen the floor 

framing if the Park desires to meet current building 

codes for future uses of the building, as well. 

Alternatives to strengthening of the floor framing 

system are discussed in the “Ultimate Treatment” 

section of this report. 

For the management and maintenance function, the 

Seed House requires restroom facilities accessible per 

the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities 

Act (ADA), ADA compliant access to the building, 

and compliant signage. Based on the maintenance 

staff occupancy, it appears that the single accessible 

restroom being installed in the Seed House will be 

adequate to accommodate the management and 

maintenance functions. It is expected to be the used 

to support future educational functions as well. 

Given the maintenance and management functions in 

the Seed House, the elevation of the above grade 

flooring, and the functional requirements of the 

proposed uses, an ADA compliant ramp is an 

appropriate approach to satisfying ADA accessibility 

requirements. Plans incorporated in the Design 

Analysis report prepared by the National Park 

Service locate a ramp along the east end of the south 

façade under the shed providing access to the interior 

through Door 101. Only the south and east 

elevations have existing door openings. The west 

elevation is constrained by the presence of the seed 

hopper feature that spans the west wall. The north 

wall is, in fact, the one most convenient to the 

parking that has been installed to the north of the 

building, but it appears to have not had doors in its 

earlier, historically significant configuration. The 

east elevation is fitted with an historic sliding door 

that is a character-defining feature and is currently in 

a fixed position beside the opening. A pair of 

temporary plywood doors secures the opening in this 

wall. This opening is approximately 8’ wide and will 

be necessary for moving oversized equipment and 

materials into and out of the building during the 

proposed Phase One use. However, locating a ramp 

at this opening would partially obscure the door and 

impact the historic character of the building. The 

south elevation has two door openings, both of which 

meet ADA width requirements. Considering the size 

and orientation of the building with respect to its 

historic function and interpretive potential, locating a 

ramp on the south elevation would have the least 

impact on the overall presentation of the rehabilitated 

building for interpretation. 

According to the September 2001 National Park 

Service Design Analysis report, all adaptive use work 

involving mechanical, electrical, telephone, and 

lighting protection will be, “mounted only to extant 

joints, timbers, and planks.” It was observed during 

the initial Historic Structure Report site visit that 

furring strips and building felt had been applied to 

some interior walls. The Design Analysis report 

recommended the modification of the building’s wall 

assembly to assist in the interior comfort of the 

occupied building prior to the installation of new wall 

finishes in the interior. 

There was no information on the presence of 

hazardous materials in the building. Because the 

building was not painted, lead-containing paint does 

not appear to be an issue. As there were no 

mechanical or electrical systems originally in the 

building, it is unlikely that there are any PCBs or 

asbestos associated with the building. The primary 

potential sources for contaminants in a building such 

as the Seed House are materials, chemicals, and 

components associated with the late years of ginning 

that might have permeated the soil. However, there 

is no evidence in the records that such conditions 

existed. 

Fire protection is an issue in both the Phase One and 

proposed Phase Two uses. The use of power tools, 

space heaters, and other related equipment that can 

generate a spark or heat are items that should be 

handled with fire prevention in mind. Given the 

relatively small size of the building and travel 

distance to the exterior, a pressurized fire protection 

system appears unwarranted. However, the judicious 

placement of the proper type of portable 

extinguishers and smoke alarms are appropriate fire 

protection measures. The existence of three exits, 

one of them oversized, allow for no restrictions on 

occupancy based on issues of life safety. Issues of 

occupancy are based on the amount of available floor 

space and the strength of the floor framing system. 

The Seed House will not have a central heating 

system. It will be an unconditioned space with the 

exception of space heaters and fans. The exterior 

walls of the building have been insulated to improve 

the comfort of the building. With this improvement, 

there will be some minor energy savings over the 

original, open, un-insulated condition of the Seed 

House. 

Alternatives for Treatment 

The Seed House has already been significantly 

modified to accommodate management and 

maintenance functions at the site. Therefore, there is 

not an opportunity to address the alternatives to that 

use and the implications for alternative uses on the 

building’s historic fabric. However, the proposed 

Phase Two use for educational purposes can be 
72 Oakland Gin HSR 

addressed here. There seem to be two alternatives to 

the educational use: 1) keeping the Seed House in 

management/maintenance use for the long term, and 

2) finding an alternative use for the Seed House other 

than maintenance and management. Keeping the 

Seed House in maintenance and management use 

would not precipitate any difficulties to the remaining 

historic fabric of the building if the floor loads were 

maintained within the capacity of the historic floor 

framing. However, this may be a limitation deemed 

undesirable for the long term as the demands for 

maintenance increase with visitation to the park. The 

need to have significant floor loads on the building 

will likely increase with the visitation and 

maintenance activities. 

Though the historic fabric of the Seed House has 

been significantly altered, the ultimate use of the 

Seed House for educational functions appears to have 

merit. First, there has been sufficient alteration to the 

Seed House that public use will not threaten the 

original building fabric. While effort has been given 

to replacing the interior and exterior building shell 

with materials matching the original, it appears that 

only the historic heavy timber framing is significantly 

intact. Short of overloading the floor framing 

capacity, the timber framing can withstand 

supervised heavy public use. The ADA ramp 

installed for the maintenance function would be 

functional for public educational programs. 

A valid case for the using the Seed House for 

educational purposes is that it is one of the last of two 

remaining structures of the Oakland Gin Complex. 

The building is important for interpreting the 

significance of the Gin Complex to the years of 

cotton production on the plantation. Interpreting 

cotton production is important for understanding the 

significance of the arrangement, and even the 

existence, of the entire plantation. In addition to the 

opportunity to interpret ginning at Oakland, there is 

also an opportunity to communicate the relationship 

of the ginning operation at Oakland Plantation with 

the ginning operation at Magnolia Plantation. 

Together, the two plantations present a more 

complete interpretation of the heart of the plantation, 

the cotton gin operation. Without the Seed House, 

interpretation is limited to media presentations or 

docent explanations out on the site. 

The newly-installed maintenance restroom, storage 

room, and removable lockers obscure some of the 

remaining seed handling features in the seed house. 

With these new additions, the hopper and wood 

supply pipe are in an unfortunate location for seed 

handing interpretation if the building were used for 

education. Therefore, some reversal of the current 

improvements may be merited, such as removing the 

modern restrooms from the Seed House and 

providing alternative facilities in an appropriate 

location elsewhere. Any required storage could be 

freestanding in the room and integrated with the 

exhibits and media projection equipment. 

Interpretative opportunities for this structure: 

Early construction methods are easily discerned in 

the hewn, heavy timber framing that is visible from 

both the interior and the exterior. 

Operation of a Seed House as it relates to the overall 

Gin Complex could be demonstrated, especially if the 

Munger system components currently in the 

possession of the National Park Service were reinstalled in the Seed House. With the Magnolia Gin 

Barn, the Park would thus be able to interpret the 

entire cotton processing system. 

Reconstruction of the Gin Barn and steam and diesel 

engine houses according to historic records could be 

undertaken. This would be costly and would 

necessitate further archaeological research used in 

conjunction with aerial photographs to determine the 

historic placement of the buildings. 

Ultimate Treatment and Use 

The ultimate use of the Seed House for educational 

functions appears to be a good choice. Given the 

work on the building to adapt it for maintenance 

functions, there are limited rehabilitation and 

restoration actions appropriate or necessary to 

convert the Seed House from a maintenance use to an 

educational use. They include: 

Restoration: Some restoration of the seed hopper and 

wood supply pipe should be considered. There 

appear to be sufficient intact components to facilitate 

the interpretation of seed transport to the planting 

wagons on the west side of the building. The Munger 

seed handling system could be re-installed in the 

Seed House using the components currently in the 

possession of the National Park Service and 

reconstructing missing components as necessary. 

The relationship of the seed handling system to the 

larger ginning process should be clearly interpreted 

using media such as exhibits and graphics. 

Preservation: The east sliding door and hardware, 

the seed hopper and wood supply pipe, and the 

building’s remaining historic wooden components, 

including the heavy timber frame, should be 

preserved. 

Rehabilitation: The rehabilitation of the Seed House 

is substantially complete. The General Management 

Plan defines the Phase I use of the Seed House as a 

Park maintenance facility. Discussions with Park 

personnel indicate that, although the building 

currently houses carpentry equipment such as a table 
National Park Service 73

saw as well as some materials storage, the main use 

of the building under the facilities management 

designation would be as an office and assembly area 

for maintenance personnel. However, the 

reconstruction of the floor framing of the building, 

which was accomplished by replacing the 

deteriorated portions of the floor framing and adding 

some supplemental strengthening, does not meet 

current building codes for loads in offices. The Park 

Service plans to convert the space for use as an 

educational facility when it becomes inadequate as a 

maintenance facility. What kind of educational 

facility this would be is unclear. Reinstalling the 

Munger system in the Seed House for purposes of 

allowing tour groups to view it could result in a use 

defined by the International Building Code as an 

assembly area. The floor framing as it currently 

exists does not meet current building code 

requirements for assembly areas, 100 psf. However, 

the load requirement for a classroom, which would 

include students, chairs, and desks, is 40 psf, the load 

the floor framing system can currently withstand 

based on the computer-modeled structural analysis of 

the system. 

Three methods could be used to mitigate the problem 

of the floor framing not adhering to code with regard 

to the current and proposed uses of the Seed House. 

One is to strengthen the existing floor framing. This 

strengthening would not involve removal of any 

historic materials, but would involve installation of 

supplemental material. This supplemental support 

would be joists installed beneath and perpendicular to 

existing joists and attached to existing piers to reduce 

the span between joists and provide vertical support. 

It should be noted that much of the existing floor 

framing was installed between 1999 and 2002 by the 

National Park Service during rehabilitation efforts at 

the Seed House. Consequently, there is not a 

significant amount of remaining historic material in 

the floor framing system. Strengthening the floor 

framing would not result in any degradation of the 

existing visual presentation because all strengthening 

would be installed beneath the existing floor and 

would, therefore, not be visible to the casual 

observer. There would be some expense associated 

with this approach. Drawings showing modifications 

to the floor framing that would provide the strength 

required by code have been prepared by Hartrampf, 

Inc. for the use of the National Park Service, should 

the Park choose this method. However, these 

drawings are not included with this report because 

this is not the preferred method of dealing with the 

structural needs of the Seed House to accommodate 

the proposed uses as outlined in the General 

Management Plan for the Park. If the National Park 

Service desires to strengthen the floor framing 

beneath the floor, the Park Service should contact 

Hartrampf, Inc. to obtain these drawings. 

The second method is to restrict the load on the floor 

framing. As it currently exists, the floor can 

withstand a load of 40 psf (pounds per square foot) 

based on the computer- modeled structural analysis 

of the framing. The code requirement for an office 

space is a load of 60 psf. To avoid strengthening the 

floor framing to meet current building codes, the Park 

must restrict the weight of stored materials and 

equipment to 40 psf. To do this, the Park will need to 

monitor the weight of items stored in the building as 

well as the weight and locations of office equipment 

such as desks, copiers, and file cabinets. Heavier 

items, such as copiers, desks, or light maintenance 

equipment such as the table saw, should be 

positioned over a pier. Personnel should be 

instructed in the reason for the locations of the 

heavier office equipment and not be allowed to move 

them at random. This option would require frequent 

monitoring of the loads to which the floor framing 

system is subjected. 

The third method is to stiffen the floor with the 

addition of another layer of plywood sheathing. 

Discussions with on-site National Park Service staff 

at Oakland Plantation indicate that there are plans to 

add another layer of plywood sheathing to the floor. 

If this layer is added, the Seed House floor and its 

supporting members will be adequate for a live load 

of 60 psf, but not for an assembly load of 100 psf. 

The additional flooring must have a minimum 

thickness of 3⁄4 inch and be securely fastened to the 

floor joists using minimum 10d common nails spaced 

no more than 16” on center. For the Seed House to 

function as office space per the Park’s General 

Management Plan without strengthening the floor 

framing system from below, this additional plywood 

sheathing must be added to the floor. This method 

would be much less expensive than the first method 

mentioned and would allow the Park to use the Seed 

House as proposed under the General Management 

Plan with fewer limitations than the second method. 

With the additional flooring, the Seed House can 

support a live load of 60 psf, which meets current 

codes for office, fixed-seat assembly, and classroom 

occupancy. This method is, therefore, preferred to the 

first two methods because it is the simplest method, 

is less expensive than the first alternative, and is 

already part of the rehabilitation plan for the Seed 

House. 

When the Park converts the Seed House to an 

educational facility, the building code requirements 

for public assembly space (100 psf) or for classroom 

space (40 psf) will apply. Which load applies 

depends on the configuration of the educational 

function of the building. However, in both cases, 

restricting the number of people in the building can 

eliminate the need to strengthen the floor framing. 

To determine the maximum number of people that 
74 Oakland Gin HSR 

should be allowed inside the building simultaneously, 

the allowable capacity as determined by the analysis 

(40 psf) was multiplied by the available floor area of 

the building and divided by 400, which is the 

International Building Code (IBC) standard 300-lb 

person multiplied by the standard IBC impact factor 

of 1.3. To avoid additional strengthening of the floor 

framing, the number of people in the building should 

be limited to one hundred people, assuming 

maintenance equipment and storage has been 

removed. Park Service personnel would need to 

ensure that storage of educational equipment and 

supplies does not exceed 40 psf. If the Park Service 

chooses to add the extra layer of plywood sheathing 

rather than strengthen the floor framing system from 

below, the number of people allowed in the building 

at one time should not exceed one hundred and fifty. 

If the Park does not add and attach the extra layer of 

plywood to the floor, a fourth means of reconciling 

the strength of the existing floor framing with the use 

of the building would be to change the proposed use 

to one that does not exceed the limits of the current 

floor framing. For instance, the building code 

requirements for a classroom, with students, chairs, 

and desks, is 40 psf, the load that the current floor 

framing system can accommodate without 

modification. This is because the addition of chairs 

and desks in a uniform configuration, such as in 

rows, restricts the number of units that can be 

accommodated in the structure and spreads the load 

more uniformly across the framing system. 

However, this approach would require that the Park 

locate the current maintenance facility elsewhere, as 

the required load capacity for offices (60 psf) exceeds 

the existing load capacity of the floor framing system 

(40 psf). 

The work required to strengthen the floor framing 

system of the Seed House to meet code requirements 

would add non-historic materials. Strengthening of 

the structure from below would be more costly than 

other means of meeting the floor load demands. 

Strengthening the floor framing system by adding an 

extra layer of 3⁄4” plywood flooring would be the 

simplest method of addressing current building code 

requirements, though not the least expensive. 

Abandoning the use of the building as a maintenance 

facility may not meet the needs of the Park. It is 

entirely feasible to manage the load on the existing 

floor framing to avoid overstressing it without 

seriously restricting the capability of the structure to 

meet its current planned use or its future planned use. 

Therefore, the recommendation is to not modify the 

existing floor system from below. The preferred 

approach is to apply the extra layer of plywood to the 

existing floor and restrict the amount of load allowed 

on the floor system as discussed, either by restricting 

the number of people and the amount of equipment 

and storage allowed in the building or by converting 

the building to another use, such as a classroom.

Upgrading of electrical equipment to meet code 

requirements: The electrical connections in 

existence during the initial site visit for this report are 

considered temporary. The following are the 

recommendations of the Hartrampf, Inc. electrical 

engineer who inspected the site. These 

recommendations are based on the understanding of 

the purpose and function of the future facility usage 

as a maintenance facility. The installations must be 

made in compliance with the latest National 

Electrical Code standards and all local regulations. 

Electrical service should be sized according to the 

differing electrical load requirements for the 

proposed equipment. To minimize intrusion into the 

remaining historic fabric and to make the 

improvements reversible if desired later, electrical 

components should be surface-mounted. 

• Install service entrance conductors and conduits 

from the secondary side of the utility transformer to 

service entrance equipment located in a designated 

area with appropriate ventilation. 

• Surface-mount electrical panels with appropriate 

number and sizes of circuit breakers for the various 

loads required for equipment. 

• Surface-mount light fixtures with energy-saving 

features; surface-mount conduits to serve these 

fixtures. 

• Surface-mount receptacles throughout the 

building; surface-mount conduits and junction boxes 

to serve these fixtures. 

• Surface-mount telephone backboard; connect 

with underground conduit from telephone company 

to the building. 

• Surface-mount telephone and data outlets 

throughout the building; surface-mount conduits to 

serve these fixtures. 

• Surface-mount exterior receptacles (GFCI) with 

weatherproof covers; surface-mount conduits to serve 

these fixtures. 

• Surface-mount exterior light fixtures around 

building; surface mount conduits to serve these 

fixtures. 

• Install an underground grounding ring or ground 

rods around building to bond all metal and electrical 

components to one grounding system. 

• Install lightning protection above the roof and 

bond to the grounding system. 

• Surface-mount any heating or cooling devices, 

such as wall heaters or ceiling fans; surface-mount 

conduits to serve these features. 

Adaptive Measures: Remove the recently-built 

restroom and storage room to better open the Seed 

House for interpretation and education. 
National Park Service 75

Other Recommended Actions: 

Additional archaeological research in the Gin 

Complex area. Archeological research in the area of 

the Gin Complex is recommended to augment the 

current understanding of the arrangement of the 

missing features and their relationship to the existing 

ones. 

Additional research into Oakland Plantation records 

regarding the Gin Complex. A better understanding 

of the relationship of the Gin and its related buildings 

to the functioning of the plantation after the Civil 

War could be obtained by a more thorough 

examination of documents both in the possession of 

the National Park Service and of other institutions 

than could be made during the course of the 

investigation for this report. Many of the early 

documents are in French and would require careful 

interpretation. Other locations where pertinent 

documents may exist include the hardware store in 

downtown Natchitoches, which has been in 

continuous operation since the Civil War and claims 

to have the sales receipts to prove it, and records of 

the insurance companies that insured the equipment 

for the plantation. 

Catalog, store, and preserve all components identified 

as part of the Oakland Plantation Gin Complex that 

are not used or replaced in their original locations for 

interpretation. This includes the parts of the Munger 

system currently located on site, and any features that 

can be retrieved, such as the diesel engine currently 

being used as a roadside ornament at the Cane River 

Gin on Highway 494 in Natchitoches. 

The Gin Complex did not operate without workers. 

Some workers at the Oakland Plantation ginning 

operation have been peripherally documented. 

Further genealogical research into these families, 

particularly the Helaires and the Nargots, should be 

undertaken to further aid in the interpretation of the 

plantation as a whole. 

While the support utilities, phone, gas, power, fuel, 

and septic system are relatively low key on the site, 

they may merit some treatment to reduce their visual 

presence should the building be converted to 

educational use. The relocation of the fuel tank offsite would be necessary from an aesthetic and safety 

standpoint.
Oakland Gin HSR 
As the nation’s principal conservation agency, 

the Department of the Interior has responsibility 

for most of our nationally owned public lands 

and natural resources. This includes fostering 

sound use of our land and water resources; protecting our fish, wildlife, and biological diversity; 

preserving the environmental and cultural values 

of our national parks and historical places; and 

providing for the enjoyment of life through 

outdoor recreation. The department assesses our 

energy and mineral resources and works to 

ensure that their development is in the best 

interests of all our people by encouraging stewardship and citizen participation in their care. 

The department also has a major responsibility 

for American Indian reservation communities 

and for people who live in island territories under 

U.S. administration. 

NPS D-80 May 2004

Cane River Creole National Historical Park

Oakland Plantation, Gin Complex

Historic Structure Report