Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop
Built in the 1770s Spanish colonial era, this briquette-entre-poteaux cottage at the corner of Bourbon and St. Philip is among the oldest surviving structures in New Orleans, a National Historic Landmark now run as a candlelit bar. Local legend ties it to privateer Jean Lafitte, who supposedly used a smithy here as a front for smuggled goods, though no documentation links the brothers to the address.
Patrons say Lafitte never left: a glowering figure haunts the dark corners and the open-hearth fireplace, where a pair of watchful red eyes is said to peer back from the grate. Phantom cigar smoke and cold spots gather around one table, and a woman no one can name lingers upstairs.
Privateer or imagination, the shadows past the gas lamps have unsettled drinkers for generations.
📍 941 Bourbon Street, New Orleans, LA 70116, New Orleans, LA · Get directions