Plan a historic road trip along Louisiana's Sugar Coast

The 70-mile stretch of the Great River Road running alongside the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is one of the most storied sections on the 3,000-mile course of America’s longest national scenic byway. The area (sometimes called the German Coast, as it was settled by German immigrants in the 1700s) is more widely known as the Sugar Coast, a nod to the extensive sugar industry that flourished along the shores of the river in the 1800s (and remains an important part of Louisiana’s economy today). By 1860, some 400 plantations lined this stretch of the Mississippi and produced nearly a quarter-million tons of sugar annually. It was a land dominated by wealthy sugar barons and known for the brutal conditions endured by tens of thousands of enslaved persons who worked its