DENHAM SPRINGS — The Antique Village in Denham Springs is bustling with charm and history, with many of its buildings standing for almost 100 years.

It started as a trading post along the Amite River in the late 19th century. While businesses have come and gone, Antique Village has kept that southern charm, and each building is historic.

Three buildings in particular help tell the history of Antique Village. One of those is the Antique Theater Mall. It opened in 1926 as a theater where people could come and buy tickets for the matinee, which were just 25 cents for adults and 10 cents for children.

When the theater first opened, it could only show silent films.

"If you were going back to the 20s now, I have been told these are original steps, but the piano sat here on the left-hand side, and the lady who was playing the piano would actually watch the movie," Albert Bye with the Antique Village Merchants Association said.

The theater is now an antique store, selling things like farming equipment and handmade wood carvings. The front desk, where people purchase the antiques, served as the concession stand when it was still the movie theater.

"This was the downtown of that time, and so in the 20s and 30s, a lot of these buildings formed the downtown Denham Springs district," Bye said.

Another important building to the Antique Village is the Old City Hall.

"Built in around 1939 and '40, it was opened in '40. It housed all the government buildings, the mayor, the council, the library, the police department. Everything was located in this building and the jail," Kathleen Dawkins said.

As the Denham Springs population grew in the 1950s and '60s, the city government moved to a new building. Old City Hall became the police department building before they moved to a new building. Old City Hall was then left vacant for a time.

"Finally, local citizens got together and started raising money and promoting the idea of restoring City Hall. Eventually, the city came on board. It was restored, renovated, and opened as a museum in 2009," Dawkins said.

Right on the corner of Antique Village is Salassi's Jewelry. Although it is one of the newer stores in the area, it still keeps that Antique Village charm.

"I believe it was in the 1920s, about 1928. It had never been put on the preservation books of Louisiana and Stuart Salassi, and I made that happen," Renee Salassi said.

The Salassis bought the location right after the 2016 floods. Despite water damage to the building, they got to work modernizing it while still preserving the history of the building.