New Orleans Pharmacy Museum
Built in 1823 as the apothecary and home of Louis J. Dufilho Jr., America's first licensed pharmacist, the Creole townhouse on Chartres Street has operated as the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum since 1950, its shelves still lined with belladonna, opium, and old surgical tools. After Dufilho left, the building passed to Dr. Joseph Dupas, around whom a dark legend grew: that he performed grotesque experiments on enslaved and pregnant women before dying in 1867. Staff and visitors have long reported the spirit of a brown-suited pharmacist drifting the curved stairway, opening locked cabinets, flinging books, and tripping the alarm in an empty building. A sorrowful woman is said to linger in the courtyard, thought to be one of his victims, while two children, believed to be Dufilho's own son and daughter who died in the home, are glimpsed wandering the rooms and garden.
📍 514 Chartres Street, New Orleans, LA 70130, New Orleans, LA · Get directions