September 2010. And wait ‘til you hear what awaits explorers at its end.

When Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne opened the newest museum under his department, the Eddie G. Robinson Museum in Grambling, a seed of an idea took hold.

“We realized we had a couple of heroes in Eddie Robinson and General Chennault,” the latter of which is honored in another northern Louisiana museum, the Chennault Aviation and Military Museum in Monroe, Dardenne said.

Dardenne wanted to find a way to encourage Louisiana residents and out-of-state travelers to visit these museums dedicated to Robinson and Chennault, plus the department’s fifteen other museums that showcase Louisiana’s history and heritage. He created the Heroes and Heritage Trail.

“Our concept was to create a linkage to all the museums and to give our collection an identity,” Dardenne explained.

But there’s a fascinating incentive as well.

Visitors who receive a “Passport to Louisiana Adventure,” literally a booklet that both explains the seventeen museums under the Louisiana Department of State and allows for stamps after each visit, are eligible to spend a night in the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge after visiting eleven museums. Once you’ve gathered your quota of stamps, you can join other Louisiana museum aficionados and spend the night on cots in a ground floor room of the Old State Capitol near the old jail. Staff will serve up pizza and soft drinks and participants will be treated to the theatrical “Ghost of the Castle” exhibit that night. The “Ghost” is Sarah Morgan, who wrote about the building in her Civil War diary, published as “Diary of a Confederate Girl.”

“We’ve elevated her (Morgan) to the ghost of the castle, our friendly spirit who looks out for the building,” Dardenne said.

The Sarah Morgan exhibit is part of a new multi-million dollar series of interactive exhibits recently completed at the Old State Capitol, that showcase Louisiana’s rich and colorful political history.

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