Kate Chopin House | |
Formerly listed on the
U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
Location | Main St. (
LA 1), Cloutierville, Louisiana |
---|---|
Coordinates | 31°32′26.04″N 92°55′1.53″W / 31.5405667°N 92.9170917°W |
NRHP reference No. | 93001601 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | April 19, 1993 [1] |
Designated NHL | April 19, 1993 [2] |
Removed from NRHP | December 28, 2015 |
Delisted NHL | December 28, 2015 |
The Kate Chopin House, also known as the Bayou Folk Museum or Alexis Cloutier House, was a house in Cloutierville, Louisiana. It was the home of Kate Chopin, author of The Awakening, after her marriage.
The house was located on Main Street ( Louisiana Highway 1) in Cloutierville, in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. The home was built by the town's founder, Alexis Cloutier [3] and was constructed using a combination of handmade brick, hand-hewn cypress boards, and bousillage. [4] Its construction, done through the use of slave labor, dated to between 1806 and 1813. [5]
Kate Chopin moved here with her husband Oscar and their five children in 1879. Her sixth child, a daughter named Lélia, was born here shortly after the family's arrival. [6] Oscar set up a general store and ran the business end of the family plantation. Shortly after their arrival in Cloutierville, he inherited a quarter of the family property. [7]
Chopin would later describe the neighborhood in her 1891 short story "For Marse Chouchoute" as "two long rows of very old frame houses, facing each other closely across a dusty roadway". [8] Neighbors, mostly of French-Creole descent, did not approve of Chopin's fashion and tendency to smoke cigarettes, play cards, and go for walks alone. [3] Local gossip also suggested that Chopin lifted her skirt higher than necessary when walking, showing her ankles. [7]
Kate Chopin only lived here for about four years when her husband died. [9] Oscar Chopin had suffered from malaria and overdosed on quinine, leading to his wife Kate to take over the business. [7] However, she soon left the home and relocated to St. Louis, Missouri by mid-1884 to be with her mother. She left her sons with the family of her husband in Cloutierville. [10]
Chopin used some of her experience in the town for inspiration for several of her writings, including Bayou Folk, A Night in Acadie, and The Awakening. [6]
The house was opened as a museum in 1979. [3] It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993 for its association with Kate Chopin's life and her use of area happenings as source for bayou life covered in much of her writings. [2] [11] Though the building was restored, the wainscoting was original, as were many of the glass panes. A collection of Chopin artifacts was displayed in one of the basement rooms. [4] The museum, known as the Bayou Folk Museum (in part because of Chopin's book of the same name), was run by the Association for Preservation of Historic Natchitoches. [5]
The house was destroyed in a fire on October 1, 2008. [12] [13] Though the cause of the fire was not determined, the home's destruction inspired the use of preventative measures at other historic structures in Louisiana. [14] Its National Historic Landmark designation and National Register of Historic Places listing were withdrawn in December 2015.