Located inside Slidell's first town hall, mayor's office, courthouse, marshal's office and jail, the museum displays two floors of photographs, collections and memorabilia on the history of Slidell. The Museum is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 12-4 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Other hours are available by appointment, simply call ahead.

A collection of artifacts throughout the first floor guide you through Slidell's earliest years in the 19th Century as a small railroad camp--little more than a tent city--for Northeastern Railroad workers laying tracks to connect New Orleans to Meridian, Mississippi and points beyond. Interpretive displays explore the city's earliest financiers and leaders, such as Baron Frederick Erlanger, who named the city for his father-in-law, John Slidell, envoy to France under the Confederate States of America; Fritz Salmen, whose brick factory and lumber yards led to the shipbuilding industry that later supplied vessels used during World War II.

The exhibit includes such antiquities as wax sphere phonographs, an Ediphone (an early dictation machine invented by Thomas Edison), vintage photographs, a Super 8 video camera and projector, and an old baby scale and clothing from the period.

The second floor houses the Mardi Gras Museum, a collection of over numerous pieces of Carnival memorabilia from the collection of local collector Bonnie Vanney, including costumes, photographs and various artifacts from Carnivals past.