NEW ROADS - The Pointe Coupee Parish Museum offers a place to connect the parish's past with the people and culture that define it.

The museum sits along False River. It is believed that before it became a museum, the house served as an overseer's cabin on Parlange Plantation.

The house was built without nails. Wooden pegs and dovetail joints have held it together for generations.

"So here it is, 266 years later. It was built here. It was not moved here, and so that means every hurricane that has struck this area for 200 years, this house has survived it," museum docent Harry Portier says.

The 40-minute tour gives people a chance to step back in time. Artifacts help tell a larger story about the people who lived there, the lives they built and the traditions passed down through generations.

For Portier, sharing that history starts with getting people through the doors first. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.