Zigler Art Museum

The Zigler Art Museum sits in Jennings, a rice town in Jeff Davis Parish, holding European and American works spanning centuries. The collection exists because the Zigler family believed a rice town deserved museum-caliber art—the same access as any city. The museum is considered one of the best small art museums in the South. The nearby regional center, Lake Charles, has been battered by catastrophe: the Great Fire of 1910, Hurricane Rita in 2005, then Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta in 2020, the latter with wind gusts to 137 mph and storm surge the National Weather Service called "unsurvivable." The city rebuilt each time, but the landscape around it—oak and pine on level coastal plain, bayous threading through—carries the memory of what wind and water can do. The Zigler is a statement about what deserves to endure in a place like this. Admission is free or nominal. Go because someone decided art was worth building for, and worth keeping.