Garyville's 160 yr old San Francisco Plantation to shut down & funding will cease

"San Francisco, the 165-year-old plantation house on the grounds of the Marathon Petroleum Corp. refinery in Garyville, will close at the end of this year, the company said Thursday.

Marathon acquired the River Road property in the mid-1970s when it bought the Garyville Refinery. The house sits on the edge of the refinery's tract, facing the Mississippi River, and has been open to tours and special events.

"It has been a privilege for us to help tell the San Francisco Plantation's story over the years," Marathon spokesperson Jamal Kheiry said. "At the same time, we recognize that, as a fuels manufacturing company, museum ownership is not part of our core business."

Marathon and the plantation's board of directors made the "difficult decision" to cease operations starting Jan. 1, Kheiry said.

The plantation house will honor any events that are already booked through the end of 2021. The house will remain open to the public until Sept. 1.

The San Francisco plantation house is listed with the National Register of Historic Places. Built in the 1850s by Edmond Bozonier Marmillion, the house has had several owners who operated the adjacent land as a sugar plantation. Notable for its distinctive architecture and intricate paint job, the house is currently operated by the River Road Historical Society, according to its website.

The house was visited by about 100,000 people annually, according to the website, at least before the COVID-19 pandemic began shuttering tourist locations. Information was not available Thursday about how the pandemic affected visitation.

In recent years, some plantation houses along the Mississippi River - San Francisco among them - have sought to provide greater context to visitors about slaves and their experiences, in contrast to the opulence of the White owners who lived in the main houses before and during the Civil War. That shift came as various plantations, often the site of contemporary weddings, suffered a backlash from those who object to such celebrations at places where enslaved men, women and children were forced to work.

Marathon did not say what role, if any, the criticism about plantation tourism played in its decision to cease operations at San Francisco. Kheiry repeated that "museum ownership is not part of Marathon's core business."

The company has not decided what will become of the house after it closes. Marathon will keep some staff until the end of the year, Kheiry said.

Marathon plans to re-invest the $350,000 it sets aside annually to run the house in educational programs for children in St. John the Baptist Parish, Kheiry said.

NOLA