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Vigil
A mule-drawn white tourist carriage passes a one-story brick and stucco building with a steep shingled roof and wooden shutters, at a corner marked by street signs reading Bourbon and St. Philip.Photo: Flickr photographer Lobberich, CC BY 2.0
A low stucco building with a steep double-pitched shingled roof and dormer windows, with the words Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar painted on the wall and patio tables on the sidewalk outside.Photo: Reading Tom, CC BY 2.0
Street-level view of the Bourbon Street facade, with open shuttered doorways, a brick chimney rising through the shingled roof, and people seated at tables inside the dim interior.Photo: BoBSerrone, CC BY-SA 3.0
Corner view of a small 18th-century cottage with a steeply pitched shingled roof, four dormers and an American flag on a pole, with a bicycle parked against the wall and neighboring French Quarter buildings behind.Photo: Yair Haklai, CC BY-SA 4.0
Night view of a stucco corner wall painted with the words Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar, with a lit hanging wooden sign reading Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Piano Bar and Lounge and people standing in the street beyond.Photo: Spatms, CC BY-SA 4.0

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop

2 published accounts
Historic site, Restaurant and barFrench Quarter, New Orleans
Open to the publicAccess details
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Access

Open to the public

The bar is open to the public and serves alcohol, so entry is limited to those 21 and over. Staff may refuse service or ask patrons to leave.

What people recorded here

2 published accounts, each credited to its source

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is a bar at Bourbon and St. Philip streets in the French Quarter, in a briquette-entre-poteaux building its owners say is the oldest structure used as a bar in the United States 1, 2. Secret New Orleans reported that patrons have described seeing the figure of Jean Lafitte standing in dark corners of the barroom, and hearing a woman's voice whisper their names on the second floor 3. Visitors commonly describe a man's figure near the fireplace, a name spoken close by with no one there, and a sense of being watched in the candlelit back room.

Field reports 0

From people who were there.

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Published accounts 2

What was published about this place elsewhere, summarized and credited to the source.

Secret New Orleans2 accounts · Oct 1, 2021

Secret New Orleans also reported accounts from patrons who said a woman's voice whispered their names into their ears on the building's second floor.

Disembodied voice

Second floor

Secret New Orleans reported that many patrons have said they saw a figure, most often identified as Jean Lafitte, standing in dark corners of the bar. The account ties the sightings to a story that he guards treasure hidden in the fireplace walls.

Apparition · Shadow figure

Barroom, near the fireplace