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C Table of Contents ONE: Introduction .................................................................................................................... 2 TWO: Methodology .................................................................................................................. 7 Research ................................................................................................................................ 7 Contexts .............................................................................................................................. 11 Construction of Timeline and Historical Narrative ............................................................ 12 Site Reconnaissance ............................................................................................................ 12 Analysis and Evaluation ..................................................................................................... 13 Treatment ............................................................................................................................ 14 THREE: Summary of Research Findings ............................................................................... 15 Documentation .................................................................................................................... 15 Photography ........................................................................................................................ 15 FOUR: Existing Conditions .................................................................................................... 57 Character-Defining Features ............................................................................................... 57 Existing Conditions at Burden ............................................................................................ 96 Existing Conditions in Windrush Gardens ......................................................................... 97 FIVE: Contexts for Historical Analysis ................................................................................ 106 Context 1: The Geographical Setting ................................................................................ 106 Context 2: Social/Political Cultural Contexts ................................................................... 109 Context 3: The Land Grant and Agricultural and Mechanical College Movement in America ............................................................................................................................. 126 Context 4: Southern antebellum revival gardens .............................................................. 129 SIX: Narrative History of the Evolution of Windrush Plantation into the LSU Burden Center ............................................................................................................................................... 148 SEVEN: Evaluating Significance ......................................................................................... 183 EIGHT: Evaluating Integrity ................................................................................................ 190 NINE: Treatment Recommendations .................................................................................... 192 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................... 197 SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS ...................................................................................... 201 APPENDIX 1: A Timeline for the LSU Burden Center ....................................................... 204 APPENDIX 2: The Eleven Wishes of Mr. Burden............................................................... 216 APPENDIX 3: Wishes of Ione and Steele Burden’s in regard to the Burden Research Property. (January, 1973) ...................................................................................................... 221 1 ONE: Introduction Project Background The Burden Center is a 440-acre green space in the heart of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the state’s capital and largest city. Initially an agricultural holding located well beyond the nineteenth century city, today it is a university research station and a museum of rural life conveniently situated astride Interstate 10, and is surrounded by dense commercial development. The land was for many years the home place of the Burden family, where they raised cattle and made a modest living. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the three siblings of Pike, Sr., and Ollie Burden inherited the land, and each left their mark, but none as deeply as did Steele Burden. The youngest of the three, Steele, a self-taught landscape designer, established the Rural Life Museum, an open-air collection of Louisiana vernacular architecture and folk life. He also designed and planted Windrush Gardens, twenty-five acres of formal and informal ornamental gardens adjacent to the original family house that dates to the antebellum period. Steele Burden was also responsible for the plantings that line the internal circulation routes that organize the large complex, and was probably the designer of much of the site’s layout as well. The original Burden home now exists alongside the Rural Life Museum, Windrush Gardens, and the house and landscaped gardens that older brother Pike Burden, Jr., built for himself and his wife Jeannette in the 1940s. In the 1970s, Steele and his sister Ione generously donated the entire land holding to Louisiana State University, for use as a horticultural research and extension station, and for related educational and conservation activities. For many years after the donation, Steele Burden was still actively involved with activities at Burden Center on a daily basis, and provided important continuity and communication between the various entities that had administrative jurisdiction over the property. The LSU Agricultural Center is in charge of the research and extension portion of the property, as well as Windrush Gardens; while the Chancellor of LSU A&M maintains management control of the Rural Life Museum. Mr. and Mrs. John C. Monroe, Pike’s nephew, live in the Pike Burden House, which is basically an “inholding,” surrounded by LSU property on three sides with the remaining side fronting Ward’s Creek. 2 After Steele Burden’s death in 1995, the need for coordination between these two arms of LSU became obvious. Because each has a different agenda, a separate budget, different operational methods, and different “cultures,” the various entities at Burden had gone along on their separate paths without optimizing collaborative opportunities. Meanwhile the Rural Life Museum had developed its own master plan and built a new visitors’ center and parking lot, which involved a land swap with the Agricultural Center, as well as a donation of a land parcel from the Monroes. With this major addition to the landscape realized, it became clear that a more formalized planning effort was the logical next step to ensure that the resources of Burden Center were maximized through the coordination of planning and programming between the two governing entities. The current master planning effort, including this Cultural Landscape Report (CLR), is a result of the initiative taken by the Agricultural Center to develop a comprehensive plan for the entire property. This plan is intended to maximize the site’s potential to offer educational and recreational resources for the community of Baton Rouge, while at the same time protecting those parts of Burden that have special value in maintaining the integrity and sense of continuity of the site and that have combined to create its reputation as a landscape of great quality and value in the heart of the city. This CLR is the primary tool for this “protection” part of the planning process. Purpose of the Cultural Landscape Report in the Master Planning Process Master planning for a cultural landscape1 is a dynamic process, implying a circular and unpredictable series of steps rather than a linear one. In an ideal world, the earliest step in the development of a plan for a landscape of historic and cultural significance is the production of the CLR to set a direction for the master planning effort. The CLR traces the historic development of the landscape, identifies the elements that are significant and should be protected and that perhaps should be featured in the development of a new master plan, 1 The National Park Service (NPS) defines cultural landscape as a “geographic area associated with a historic event, activity, or person or exhibiting other cultural or aesthetic values.” The four types are historic sites, historic designed landscapes (Windrush Gardens), historic vernacular landscapes (Burden agricultural landscape), and ethnographic landscapes (landscapes containing resources that associated people define as heritage resources, such as religious sacred sites). 3 pinpoints the sections of the landscape that have lost their original integrity and are in need of design intervention, and, most importantly, articulates what the essential qualities of the landscape as a cultural resource, are. Therefore, the report contains critical information about the site that lays the groundwork for the decision-making that is to follow. In the case of the Burden Center Master Plan, there was so much momentum to initiate the planning process, that there was not sufficient time to complete the Cultural Landscape Report prior to the larger plan. So the two plans were undertaken

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