louisiana sports hall of fame and northwest louisiana history museum

Interesting although it does not have too many exhibits but it explains well the State and local history of famous sportsmen and women.

our husbands wanted to check this place out. the wives were not real excited. it was terrific. beautiful building and exhibits. we all loved it and were so glad we went. allow plenty of time. there is a lot to see.

A museum that Louisiana should be proud of! State of the art, very nice and beautiful architecture and a good collection of memorabilia. Wonderful staff and even has an area with the history of Natchitoches where the museum is located.

The museum has a lot of information concerning the many sports starts produced by Louisiana through the years and I found it really interesting. The 2nd floor is dedicated to the local history of Natchitoches and the surrounding area. Again, interesting and informative. The architecture of this facility is almost as interesting as the items in the museum. Certainly worth the visit!

As history buffs who have been to many museums around the world and were very impressed with the displays and artifacts in the museum. We thought the murals and exhibits were well done and that there are some artifacts that we have not seen in other museums that helped explain and tell the story of the area's history and paint a picture of the plantations and the past life style on the plantations and other aspects of the local history. NOTE; This rating is in spite of the structure in which the museum is located. As we walked the historic district we were shocked that it looked like an architect had been allowed to build something futuristic out of flowing concrete and weird louver-looking side panels, all set in different angles --- all right in the perfectly preserved district in the oldest town and the oldest historic district in Louisiana. So please note that our excellent rating is for the museum exhibits and artifacts, not the building itself. We would give the building and the architect, and the Historical Commission that allowed it to be built a Negative 5 if we could. Whoever is in charge of the Historical Commission or Society for Natchitoches has let this architect set a precedent that could lead to more of these modernistic structures being built that are totally anachronistic and in the wrong place geographically. This building could have been located a block back away from the historic main street and served the purpose just as well. Or the museum could have been built near the University where it would have been perfectly suited to demonstrate architectural and engineering skill. I cannot see New Orleans allowing something like this to be built on Royal or Bourbon street in the French Quarter, but we suspect that some architecture professors from the local college are on the Historical Council and are the ones responsible for recommending the architect who did this. If the Historical Committee can keep the academic architects from controlling the Historical Council then perhaps a hundred years from now, there will still be a Historic District that will attract visitors to see what the city looked like in the past and preserve the ambience that draws tourists, Otherwise the next architect recommendations could be to pave over the red brick, and then to replace the old structures with more concrete monstrosities. At that point, there will be no attraction for Natchitoches downtown and tourists will just continue on down to New Orleans where the Historical Council or Society seems to be working hard to preserve its historical ambience. We're glad we got to see Natchitoches while there was still something left to the Historic District before architects got a chance to destroy the rest of it. And before the some architect suggests we just don't understand the sophistication of the structure, we recognize the flow of the concrete is probably supposed to represent the flow of the river and the oxbows. Yes we recognize that the louvered exterior is probably supposed to represent the old louvered windows of the historical buildings. Yes we recognize the skill and engineering it took to design and cast all of the unique and individual blocks to make the concrete appear to flow. But we also recognize that it would not be appropriate to replace Monet's wooden arch bridge in his garden in Giverny with some monstrosity made out of concrete just because some architect thought he could make it look like a water lily. Someone responsible for preserving history in Natchitoches has to use some common sense and keep this from happening again if they want to preserve the city for their children and grandchildren.

Excellent presentation of state athletes. Displays were great. The downside was it didn't seem to fit in with the town.

The contents are definitely interesting for a sports buff. The second floor contains Natchitoches history, and I enjoyed the artifacts and info. My favorite parts were the color pencil and pastel portraits of sports stars and the original Clementine Hunter paintings. The building itself is quite a marvel and worth the visit even if you have no interest in sports or local history. I was a little put off that some of the exhibits had poor quality photos and/or mistakes that need to be fixed.

Awesome building and loved all the memorabilia. We were excited to learn about the Louisiana athletes and have learned someone we know may be inducted. We'll go back for the festivities if he does !!

We visited the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame on a rainy day. It was much larger than I expected it to be! It was also very modern. I was impressed with the artifacts held there. Very glad we explored!

While the architecture has gained great acclaim, I feel it is an eye sore on the historic downtown. It side is much better. There is a nice collection of sports memoribilia. on the second floor the are some historic items from the town on loan from many families around the area.

This is a developing venue, with lots of room for expansion. It combines sports and Louisiana history which is an interesting combination.

What a wonderful building although it does not really fit the architecture of Natchitoches. The sports hall of fame is well done and provides excellent records. The history museum on the upper floor totally captures the history and people of Louisiana. We will go back on our next visit.

Great architecture which reminds one of Barcelona or the old TWA terminal at JFK far more than downtown Natchitoches. The exhibits are a work-in-progress and you can tell that this museum used to be a bunch of stuff in trophy cases...they've upgraded it significantly but there are still bunches of stuff in trophy cases, surrounded my multimedia. It costs a whopping $5 to visit, though, so I can't imagine many valid complaints about the quality!

We stopped in when walking back to our B&B. it was a nice diversion after perusing the shops in the historic district. The building is unique in and out and I probably looked at it more than the sports exhibits which were a bit bland for me. The natural history section upstairs was better than the sports section, and there was a Clementine Hunter exhibit that was good.

When you first walk in the museum you will be struck by how unique the interior architecture of the building is. The museum charges $5 to get in and offers plenty of interesting content for that price. The first floor is smaller but upstairs they have interesting displays that show the history of sports in Louisiana (ranging from football, tennis, hunting, etc.) The coolest part of the museum, however, was the history on northwestern Louisiana. This part of the museum offered a great chance to learn about the history and culture of northwestern Louisiana.