The Louisiana Maneuvers and Military Museum is located in the central Louisiana town of Pineville, near the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Pineville.
The museum is dedicated to telling the story of the Louisiana Maneuvers and of the Louisiana National Guard’s continuous role in the history of Louisiana and our great nation.
During 1940, the Army held its first peacetime draft and mobilized the National Guard. This increased the Army’s size from 116,000 to more than 500,000. In order to train so many soldiers, land was needed — a lot of land.
Louisiana provided the required land and was selected as the training site to host the first Corps vs. Corps exercise for the first group of 70,000 soldiers.
This maneuver was so successful that Louisiana was again used to host the largest peace time exercise: The GHQ Army vs. Army Maneuver.
The largest concentration of American might in the United States, 472,000 soldiers, participated in two mighty battles that transformed the Army’s organization and doctrine for the remainder of World War II.
This museum is one of two Louisiana National Guard Museums and opened in 1997.
The mission of the museum is to collect, preserve and interpret the history of the Louisiana’s Army and Air National Guard in order to provide our Guardsmen and citizens with an educational resource, which promotes esprit de corps and an increased positive public image of the Louisiana National Guard.
Exhibits cover the Early Colonial period and every major war era. Also on display in Vehicle Park are military equipment and vehicles from World War I to Desert Storm. For a tour of historical significance, visit the museum from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday-Friday.
For more information call: 318-641-5733.
