Group Tours

Frogmore is the only cotton plantation in the South offering a comprehensive guided tour that fully explains the causes and effects of change on a working cotton plantation from the 1700's through today.  Frogmore is a one-of-a-kind tour since the owners are the costumed guides along with their staff.  Visitors receive the most thorough explanation of slave culture and the plantation system in America, based on former slave narratives and extensive archives while viewing the tools and antiques in the authentically restored dependency buildings on the property. 

A golf cart for handicapped persons and complimentary beverages are included in all adult group tours.   

FROGMORE COTTON PLANTATION & GINS IS THE ONLY PLANTATION OR HISTORICAL ATTRACTION WHERE YOUR GROUPS CAN ACTUALLY PICK COTTON (JULY - APRIL)

For details on group tours and special international rates contact Lynette or Buddy Tanner, owners at 318-757-2453 or by email. Admissions can be paid upon arrival, prepaid, or by credit card (AMEX, Master Card, VISA, Discover). Advanced reservations required for groups of fifteen or more.

Group Tour Info

• Each bus/group is personally welcomed and bidded farewell by (owners) Buddy & Lynette Tanner.
• On-site videos and translations in English, French and German
• Authentically furnished slave row cabins dating to 1810
• Wheelchair accessible and golf cart available
• Beverages offered mid-way through tour. Homemade lemonade or ice water in warm weather and hot tea, coffee, or water in cool weather.

Three Superior Tour Options

All give visitors a comprehensive understanding of changes in the South.

• Our comment cards from visitors with Trafalgar Tours, Globus/Cosmos, World Wide Country Tours, Go West, Tauck, and numerous others are BETTER than any other destination on their itineraries.
• The owners (Buddy & Lynette Tanner) not only created the tours but are guides & offer true southern hospitality, personal attention, and extensive knowledge of the subject matter.
• Every tour operator that has visited has rebooked.

The Cotton Plantation Tour for Schools

Students learn best when they can see and experience history. I am a former teacher and have created a fun, educational field trip and can adjust it to various age levels. The price is $5.00 for each student. The tour is interactive: elementary students use tambourines and sticks to keep rhythm while learning the history of gospel music. (Optionally, an African American vocalist can perform the historical songs for an additional flat fee of $50 per tour. Several classes may share the cost.)

Along with all of the hands-on learning of history, we strive to meet the needs of the GLE (Grade Level Expectation) requirements for each grade level, such as identifying geographical features & natural resources, comparing cultural traditions, and explaining causes and effects of migrations to the Deep South. We include a review guide for teachers to use in quizzing their students after returning to the classroom and a checklist of the GLE requirements met during the tour.

Frogmore Plantation has the most comprehensive southern history tour available. My husband and I own and operate the only 1,800 acre working historical and modern cotton plantation in the South with 19 restored historical buildings that date from 1790 to 1900. Dependent on grade levels, students experience the life of an antebellum slave, the uncertainty of a free sharecropper, and the high-tech mechanization of a working plantation today including botanical information about cotton. All students can actually pick cotton from August through mid-April and lower grades re-enact a slave wedding with a "jumpin' the broom" ceremony. Historical games are part of the tour for elementary students. Small groups rotate stations so that the students can learn several games.

The tours begin in a 1790's log cabin and take the students through the day in the life of a child in the early 1800's. We include chores, games, schooling, deeds, wills, and child and adult responsibilities for both slave families and planter families. Additionally, they view a brief video or power point with living history reenactments and/or early photos.

Students participate while learning African rhythms and understand how those cultural songs merged with protestant hymns to give birth to American Gospel Music. They learn the hidden meanings within the lyrics and the importance that music played in the work structure and social lives of the people on plantations.

The students learn how cotton evolved into the cash crop that supported the South's economy. Dependent upon grade level, students tour a rare 1884 steam engine cotton gin with all its original equipment, a plantation church, barn, overseer's cottage, cooking cabin, slave quarters, washhouse/sewing cabin, and plantation store. Some grades learn about the plantation sugar cane mill and the syrup and sugar process. A summary of the tour per grade level is available when you contact us for more information

At the conclusion of the historical tour, junior high and high school students also tour a computerized 900 bales-per-day cotton gin in the optional modern tour where students view cotton farming and ginning via large screen. Cotton and cottonseed products, worldwide production, and unusual cotton trivia with a question/answer session conclude the tour. View the only computerized cotton gin in the nation in action September and October—harvest season which is the best time for junior high and high school to visit.

Sack lunches may be eaten in our "sharecropper cabin" or picnic tables before or after the tour. We have soft drinks, various snacks, and inexpensive souvenirs. We can also recommend several fast food restaurant options nearby.

We look forward to sharing a memorable experience with your class. 

318-757-2453 or 318-757-3333    frogmore@bayou.com

The Cotton Plantation Tour

This tour compares and contrasts a working cotton plantation from 1790 through today. Visitors experience slave culture, sharecropping, & modern technology. Owners & guides give superior historical narration. Frogmore offers both a rare antique steam gin and high-tech modern gin along with 19 antebellum outbuildings. Eight are furnished and visited during the tour.
We have cotton to pick during the tour.
Beverage included.

Tour Duration: 1 1/2 to 2 hrs.
Golf cart for handicapped.
Group rate $10 per person.

The Delta Music Tour

This tour takes visitors on a journey of the South through song. Seated in a rare 1800's plantation church with original pews, visitors listen to outstanding vocalists and superior historical narration that relates the trials and triumphs of life on a plantation. The singing and narrations continue through the furnished cabins in the quarters. After refreshments in the plantation store, a step-on-guide accompanies your group to the State of Louisiana Delta Music Museum. Enroute to Ferriday, your group listens to specially recorded blues, ragtime and jazz while your guide highlights the artists and changes in style for each genre. After arrival to the music museum, your are greeted by the director who gives you a guided tour while relating intimate stories about Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley, Aaron Neville, Conway Twitty, Percy Sledge and other Delta musicians featured in the museum. Listen to their famous Delta songs.

Tour Duration: 2 hrs. 15 minutes

Minimum qty. 25 persons with live vocalists

$14 per person (2 vocalists)
$12 per person (1 vocalist)

*NOTE: Groups smaller than 25 may still request the Delta Music tour with one vocalist for the following fee: $12 per person, plus $50 flat rate for vocalist fee

The Delta Music Tour with slave wedding re-enactment

During the musical presentation at Frogmore, costumed bride and groom re-enact a slave wedding, and visitors become guests at a wedding from the archives and then parade "cakewalk style" to the plantation store.

Minimum qty. 25 persons $16 per person 2 live vocalists, bride and groom

Next stop is the Delta Music Museum to see how and why music interplayed daily in the lives of the slaves and sharecroppers. Then see how that earlier music transformed into rhythm & blues and rock 'n' roll. The Delta Music Museum is the Hall of Fame for the State of Louisiana.

Music, Mistresses, & Marriage

This enticing tour takes your group to Stanton Hall, a grand Natchez town home, to meet the bride-to-be and help her finalize her plans for an elite, antebellum wedding. Choose her musical selections; listen to wedding tidbits & wealthy planter social customs; then travel on to Frogmore to experience a journey of the South through song. Seated in a rare 1800's plantation church with original pews, visitors listen to the mistress of Frogmore and two outstanding vocalists narrate and sing the trials and triumphs of life on a plantation. The singing and narrations continue through the furnished cabins in the quarters. After the musical presentation, the guests participate in a slave wedding from the archives and parade "cakewalk" style to the plantation store for refreshments. A step-on-guide escorts your group the entire tour with "music & mistress" lore. Enroute back to Natchez your group continues the musical journey listening to specially recorded blues, ragtime and jazz while the guide highlights the artists and changes in style for each genre.

Tour Duration: 3 hrs. Pricing: $32 per person Minimum qty. 25 persons

All are professional, thorough, and FUN!