Jefferson Island / Rip Van Winkle Gardens

Actor Joseph Jefferson built a Victorian mansion here in the 1870s, and the 15-acre semi-tropical gardens that surround it — shaded by 350-year-old oaks — are still open for tours. The admission fee gets you formal paths, ornamental plantings, and a house tour if you want it. What happened in 1980 is why people actually come. A Texaco drilling rig on adjacent Lake Peigneur punctured the salt dome beneath the lake. The lake drained entirely into the salt mine below. Eleven barges, a tugboat, and a drilling platform disappeared into the vortex. No one died. When the lake refilled, it refilled with saltwater from the Gulf. It has been saltwater ever since. The garden is still semi-tropical. The oaks are still standing. The lake is a different lake. Gardens open daily off LA 675, near Delcambre.