{"id":1222,"slug":"oak-alley-plantation-vacherie-louisiana","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Oak Alley is the house the trees outgrew — the Bon Séjour that Jacques Telesphore Roman built 1837-39 behind an allée of live oaks planted a century before, the twenty-eight colossal columns matched to the twenty-eight oaks, the governor's brother's mansion on the river road that the boat captains named for the trees. The oaks were already old when the columns went up; they're three hundred years old now, eight hundred feet of canopy between the house and the Mississippi.","The slave quarters held the plantation's other history — Antoine, the enslaved gardener who in the winter of 1846-47 first grafted pecans successfully, his Centennial variety the start of the commercial pecan industry. The Romans lost it to auction in 1866; the Stewarts restored it in 1925 in the peach-pink and blue-green it wears. The oaks were here before the house and they're the reason the house is famous — the oldest residents of the plantation that slavery built.","The file keeps Oak Alley: the three-hundred-year oaks, the Roman mansion, Antoine's grafted pecan, and the allée that made the plantation a postcard.","Oak Alley is the archive's plantation file — the trees older than the house and the enslaved gardener who changed American horticulture."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Oak Alley is the archive's plantation file — the 1725 oaks, the 1839 mansion, and Antoine's pecan.","A plantation named for its trees keeps its gardeners — the file's suggestion being that Oak Alley's hold is the allée: the oaks that predate the columns, and the enslaved man whose grafting changed agriculture more than the family that owned him."]}],"name":"Oak Alley Plantation","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_PLANTATION","type_label":"Historic Plantation","cats":["HAUNTED_PLACE"],"groups":["dark-history","hauntings"],"desc":"Historic plantation in Vacherie; research record.","full_desc":"Oak Alley Plantation is a historic plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana. Historic plantation in Vacherie; research record. It sits in the archive under haunted places. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend — all telling, no verified spine yet, and the file says so plainly. Access details are unverified — research before visiting. The dossier keeps the place and the story in the same record — which is what the archive is for.","address":null,"city":"Vacherie","county":null,"state":"Louisiana","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.007471,"lon":-90.711935,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery pass. Precise location, historical chronology and current visitor conditions require independent enrichment. Confidence concerns provenance only.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":43.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":503,"type":"HAUNTING","description":"Explore Louisiana reports staff accounts of shadows and phantom carriage sounds. The reports at Oak Alley Plantation are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. The reports keep the place on every haunted list it qualifies for.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.65,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Louisiana’s Haunted History","url":"https://www.explorelouisiana.com/articles/haunted-louisiana-experiences","publisher":"Louisiana Office of Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Explore Louisiana reports staff accounts of shadows and phantom carriage sounds. The site in Vacherie, Louisiana gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. The account appears in 'Louisiana’s Haunted History'. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Louisiana’s Haunted History","url":"https://www.explorelouisiana.com/articles/haunted-louisiana-experiences","publisher":"Louisiana Office of Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Louisiana’s Haunted History","url":"https://www.explorelouisiana.com/articles/haunted-louisiana-experiences","publisher":"Louisiana Office of Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Oak Alley Plantation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Alley_Plantation","desc":"Historic house in Louisiana, United States","extract":"Oak Alley Plantation is a historic plantation located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, in the community of Vacherie, St. James Parish, Louisiana, U.S. Oak Alley is named for its distinguishing visual feature, an alley  or canopied path, created by a double row of southern live oak trees about 800 feet long, planted in the early 18th century — long before the present house was built. The allée or tree avenue runs between the home and the River. The property was designated a National Historic Landmark for its architecture and landscaping, and for the agricultural innovation of grafting pecan trees, performed there in 1846–47 by an enslaved gardener. It was first known as Bon Séjour.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Oak_Alley_Plantation%2C_Louisiana_%28Scott_Oldham%29.jpg/330px-Oak_Alley_Plantation%2C_Louisiana_%28Scott_Oldham%29.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":108,"lat":30.00428,"lon":-90.775933},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}