Louisiana Fun Facts - Things you didn't know about your bayou state.

1. When oil was discovered in Caddo Parish, land prices jumped from 50¢ per acre to $500 per acre. The impact of oil on this region is highlighted at the Caddo-Pine Island Oil and Historical Society Museum in Oil City.

2. A classic example of Greek Revivial style, the Claiborne Parish Courthouse in Homer was completed in 1861. It served as a departure point for soliders going off to fight for the Confederate cause.

3. Ten miles south of Lake Providence lies a small farming town named Transylvania.

4. On Hwy. 2 between Oak Grove and Bastrop is a cedar tree with a cherry tree growing right out from the middle of it. This unusual tree is located in Redwing Cemetery.

5. At 4,700 acres, Hodges Gardens in Many is the largest privately owned garden in the country.

6. Each April, the Rebel State Historic Site hosts the Louisiana Fiddling Championship. Rebel SHS is home to the Louisiana Country Music Museum.

7. General Patton crossed the Sabine River during the big Louisiana 1941 maneuvers.

8. For 15 years, Beauregard Parish was in the heart of the neutral strip of land known as "No Man's Land" and was not included in the original area known as Louisiana at the time of its purchase in 1803.

9. The Kisatchie National Forest encompasses over 600,000 acres spread over seven parishes.

10. Winnfield is famous for providing Louisiana with three governors: Huey and Earl Long as well as O.K. Allen.

11. Melrose Plantation, south of Natchitoches, was founded by Marie-Therese Coin-Coin, a freed slave. In the 1940s, primitive artist Clementine Hunter worked there as well.

12. The staircase at Chretien Point Plantation was copied for Tara in Gone With The Wind.

13. Shadows-on-the-Teche in New Iberia is the only property on the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the Gulf South.

14. Conrad Rice Mill in New Iberia is the oldest operating rice mill in the US.

15. Teche is an Indian word meaning "snake."

16. The Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, held in Morgan City, is the oldest state-chartered harvest festival, established on Labor Day 1936.

17. The Evangeline Oak is the most photographed tree in the world.

18. St. Martinville is known as the "Birthplace of Acadiana."

19. The Creole Nature Trail National Scenic Byway passes through Louisiana's largest parish, Cameron.

20. Almost everything known about alligators comes from research done at the Rockefeller State Wildlife Refuge.

21. Cheniers, sandy beach ridges topped with trees, are the first resting and eating stop for birds and butterflies as they migrate north from the Gulf of Mexico.

22.The salt mine on Avery Island near New Iberia is the oldest salt mine in the western hemisphere.

23. "Passion Fish" (1993), starring Mary McDonnell and Alfre Woodard and directed by John Sayles, was filmed in Lake Arthur, Opelousas and Lafayette, along the Jean Lafitte Scenic Byway.

24. Laurel Valley Village is the oldest surviving 18th and 19th-century sugar plantation in America.

25. Bayou Lafourche is known as the "longest street in the world."

26. The parishes (counties) east of the Mississippi River along this scenic Byway are known as the Florida Parishes because in 1810 they declared themselves the Republic of West Florida and free from Spanish rule. Later that same year, they asked to be admitted to the United States.

27. Baton Rouge was the site of the only American Revolution battle fought outside the thirteen colonies.

28. The Mississippi River drains all or parts of 32 states and two Canadian provinces.

29. In 1999, "The Farm" was filmed on the grounds of Angola and received an Academy Award nomination for "Best Documentary."

30. The site of the DeLaRonde House was a French colonial plantation used as a British hospital during the Battle of New Orleans. The site contains the last above ground structural remnants existing on the battlefield.