It was founded in 1836 by Germans, adherents to ideas of religious leader Maximilian Ludwig (1788-1834), the "Count of Leon", and it lasted as a commune until 1871.

[2] In the colony, all property was owned in common and observance of religious principles was required.

The kitchen-dining hall has a dry wall stone cellar and an adjacent frame shack.

These surviving historic buildings, and sympathetic rustic others, still "convey in their crude and primitive character something of the life style of the Germantown settlers.

This article about a property in Louisiana on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.