Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop
Built in the Spanish colonial era of the 1770s, the briquette-entre-poteaux cottage at the corner of Bourbon and St. Philip is one of the oldest surviving structures in New Orleans and a National Historic Landmark, now run as a candlelit bar. Local legend ties it to the privateer Jean Lafitte, who supposedly used a smithy here as a front for smuggled goods, though no documentation actually links the brothers to this address. Patrons say Lafitte never left: a glowering figure is seen in the dark corners and beside the open-hearth fireplace, where a pair of watchful red eyes is said to peer back from the grate. The scent of phantom cigar smoke and sudden cold spots are reported around the same table, and a second spirit, a woman whose identity no one agrees on, is said to linger on the upper floor. Whether 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