Located along Cane River Lake, the park is approximately 63 acres and includes two French Creole cotton plantations, Oakland and Magnolia.

In total, 65 historic structures and over a million artifacts enhance the National Park Service mission as it strives to tell the story of the evolution of plantation agriculture through the perspective of the land owners, enslaved workers, overseers, skilled workers, and tenant farmers who resided along the Cane River for over two hundred years.

As with others in the area, the homes and plantations of these families reflected the French Creole architectural style and way of life.

LeComte established the Shallow Lake plantation and focused mainly on tobacco as a commodity crop, and subsistence farming.

During the Civil War, Magnolia's main house was burned to the ground by Union troops during the Red River Campaign.

A hardship faced by many sharecroppers across the South was the cycle of poverty created through the constant flow of debt and repayment owed to the plantation store.

On December 29, 2022, the main house and surrounding grounds were added to the national historical park's authorized boundary.

The lives of the diverse people associated with Magnolia are being represented to reflect the resilience, resourcefulness, dedication, and continuous interaction of families and communities along Cane River.

In 1789[disputed – discuss], Emanuel Prud'homme received a land grant from the Spanish government, who ruled Louisiana during that time.

During this period, Emmanuel began to purchase enslaved workers to labor in the fields and build the structures needed on the plantation.

During these years the enslaved population continued to perform a variety of skills: from cultivating the land and processing the cotton, to constructing the buildings, managing livestock, and making most of the goods needed by the plantation's occupants.

During the Red River Campaign both the Union and Confederate armies destroyed plantation buildings, crops, and livestock.

Pierre Emmanuel Prud'homme took the land on the east side of the river and established his own plantation, which he called Atahoe.

He adapted to the free labor economy, hiring freedmen as sharecroppers; some Creoles of color leased land separately as tenant farmers.

During this era, the Prud'hommes opened a store and post office at Oakland to provide supplies and services for sharecroppers and tenant farmers.

By the 1960s the family adopted mechanization for agriculture, with machines doing more of the tasks long performed by mules and human workers.

[7] John Isiah Walton created an artwork depicting a girl looking at her reflection titled "Cane River".