The New Orleans Mint Museum offers three stories of attractions, including exhibits pertaining to the New Orleans Mint and its coinage on the first floor, several rooms showcasing collections of jazz history mostly confined to the second floor, and a theater for performing arts on the third. The state of Louisiana took ownership of the building in 1965, with the building converted into a branch of the Louisiana State Museum in 1981 and serving a role as a museum of both New Orleans minting and coinage as well as jazz music – a cultural touchstone of the city known as “The Big Easy.” What’s it Like to Visit the New Orleans Mint Museum?
The assay operations shut down there in 1932 and the building served as a Federal prison until 1943, after which it became a storage site for the United States Coast Guard.
Some 30 years later, in 1909, the last coins rolled off presses at the New Orleans Mint and the building was formally decommissioned as a mint in 1911. However, in 1862 Union forces reclaimed the New Orleans Mint building, which years later saw use as an assay office beginning in 1876 and returned to minting coins in 1879. The New Orleans Mint as photographed circa 1890.