Mark Twain, however, as a steamboat pilot in the 1850s, loathed the sight of it, "It is pathetic ... that a whitewashed castle, with turrets and things ... should ever have been built in this otherwise honorable place.

"[5] In 1862, during the Civil War, Union Admiral David Farragut captured New Orleans, and the seat of government retreated from Baton Rouge.

By 1882 the statehouse was totally rebuilt by architect and engineer William A. Freret, who is credited with the installation of the spiral staircase and the stained glass dome, which are the interior focal points.

Numerous events are held there including an annual ball wherein the participants re-enact dances and traditions of French culture while wearing 18th- and 19th-century dress.

The museum's location downtown in Baton Rouge is within walking distance of the current capitol tower and of many culturally significant buildings.

A key attraction, The Ghost of the Castle,[6] is a theatrical production, during which visitors come face to face with the ghost of Sarah Morgan Dawson, a young Baton Rouge resident who loved the castle and wrote about it in her book, Sarah Morgan: The Civil War Diary of a Southern Woman (originally published in 1913 under a different title).