Louisiana State Exhibit Museum

A 1,000-year-old Caddo log boat sits in this building — 30 feet long, excavated from the Red River, a vessel that moved through water when Northwest Louisiana was entirely Native ground. The Louisiana State Exhibit Museum was built in 1939 as a WPA project, and it houses one of the most extensive collections of Louisiana Native American artifacts in the state. The boat is formative evidence: this region's human story begins with the Caddo, and the museum holds the proof. The rotunda features a topographical relief map by sculptor Duncan Ferguson. Louisiana artists contributed murals throughout depicting state landscapes and history. The building itself is New Deal craft — federal money during the Depression employed both labor and art, and Shreveport got both. It's a Secretary of State museum, which means state funding and state stakes. The collection anchors what came before European contact, before statehood, before oil. Go for the log boat. It traveled the same river that still flows past the city, and it's older than anything else you'll see in Shreveport. Open Monday through Friday, 9am to 4pm, 3015 Greenwood Road.