Haunted Louisiana

105 haunted destinations cataloged across Louisiana, spanning 37 counties. The collection features museum, cemetery, and haunted hotel — every listing verified with family ratings, accessibility info, and practical visit logistics.

105 locations 37 counties 12 classifications 58 wheelchair accessible

Featured in Louisiana

Top 6
The historic Myrtles Plantation antebellum home in St. Francisville, Louisiana
Haunted House / Historic Home

Myrtles Plantation

St. Francisville, LA

Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana was built in 1796 by General David Bradford on land he received after fleeing federal prosecution following the Whiskey Rebellion. The property changed hands multiple times throughout the 19th century, accumulating a documented history of violent deaths including the 1871 murder of attorney William Winter on the entrance staircase.

$$ All Ages for day tours; overnight stays may vary Family: Moderate
Raised central-hall facade of the Beauregard-Keyes House (1826) at 1113 Chartres Street in the New Orleans French Quarter.
Museum / Historical Site

Beauregard-Keyes House

New Orleans, LA

The Beauregard-Keyes House at 1113 Chartres Street is an 1826 raised center-hall mansion designed by architect Francois Correjolles and built by James Lambert for auctioneer Joseph LeCarpentier. Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard rented the house in 1866-1868. Novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes purchased it in the 1940s, restored it, and bequeathed it to the foundation that operates it as a house museum today.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Pink-stuccoed exterior of Brennan's Restaurant at 417 Royal Street, an 1795 French Quarter mansion that became one of New Orleans' iconic Creole dining destinations
Haunted Dining / Bar

Brennan's Restaurant

New Orleans, LA

Brennan's Restaurant opened in 1946 and moved to its current Royal Street building in 1956. The building dates to the late 18th century and previously housed the Banque de la Louisiane. Bananas Foster - now an iconic New Orleans dessert - was invented at Brennan's by chef Paul Blange in 1951. The Brennan family openly maintains haunted-history materials. The restaurant was featured on Ghost Hunters in connection with the Red Room.

$$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Yellow stucco facade of Faulkner House Books at 624 Pirate's Alley, the former residence of William Faulkner adjacent to St. Louis Cathedral in the New Orleans French Quarter
Haunted House / Historic Home

Faulkner House Books

New Orleans, LA

The townhouse at 624 Pirate's Alley was built in 1837. William Faulkner lived on the ground floor for approximately six months in 1925, sub-leasing from artist William Spratling, and completed his first novel, Soldiers' Pay, while in residence. The building was designated a Literary Landmark by the Friends of New Orleans Public Library on June 25, 1993. Faulkner House Books was founded as an independent bookstore on the ground floor in 1988 by Joseph J. DeSalvo Jr. and his wife Rosemary James.

$ All Ages Family: High
The Egyptian-style Brunswig pyramid mausoleum stands among elaborate tombs in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Metairie Cemetery

New Orleans, LA

Metairie Cemetery was founded in 1872 on the grounds of the bankrupt Metairie Race Course in New Orleans. The 150-acre cemetery preserves the oval racetrack as its perimeter road and contains some of the most elaborate funerary monuments in the United States, including burial places of nine Louisiana governors, three Confederate generals, and Storyville madam Josie Arlington.

$ All Ages Family: High
Historic exterior view of Muriel's Jackson Square, a Creole restaurant at 801 Chartres Street in the New Orleans French Quarter.
Haunted Dining / Bar

Muriel's Jackson Square

New Orleans, LA

Muriel's Jackson Square occupies a French Quarter property whose history dates to 1718, when New Orleans founder Bienville awarded the lot to French-Canadian Claude Trepagnier. The current building was rebuilt after the Great New Orleans Fire of 1788 by Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan. Muriel's opened in March 2001 as a Creole restaurant and rapidly became one of the French Quarter's signature dining destinations.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

More in Louisiana

New Orleans — 27

Bottom of the Cup Tea Room — Haunted Dining / Bar
Haunted Dining / Bar

Bottom of the Cup Tea Room

New Orleans, LA

Bottom of the Cup Tea Room has operated continuously since 1929 in the French Quarter. The building itself dates to the antebellum period when it served as a residence for Julie, an Octoroon woman maintained as the mistress of a wealthy Creole businessman. The structure represents French Quarter architecture and 19th-century social complexities.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Exterior of the Bourbon Orleans Hotel at 717 Orleans Street in New Orleans' French Quarter
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Bourbon Orleans Hotel

New Orleans, LA

The site at 717 Orleans Street in New Orleans' French Quarter has been continuously occupied since entrepreneur John Davis built the Orleans Theatre and Ballroom in 1817, designed by architect Henry Latrobe. The Sisters of the Holy Family — one of the earliest African American religious congregations in the United States — operated a school and orphanage in the building from 1881 to 1964 before the property was converted to its current hotel use.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Historic pink Creole-style facade with wrought-iron balconies at the Dauphine Orleans Hotel in the New Orleans French Quarter, lit at dusk.
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Dauphine Orleans Hotel

New Orleans, LA

The Dauphine Orleans Hotel opened in 1969 as a French Quarter boutique hotel built around several existing historic buildings on Dauphine Street, the most notable of which is the former site of May Baily's Place - the first officially licensed bordello in New Orleans, which opened in 1857 under the city's 'Ordinance Concerning Lewd and Abandoned Women.' The original 1857 city license is displayed inside the hotel. The Audubon Cottage on the property is reputed to be a former workspace of naturalist John James Audubon.

$$$ All Ages (guest rooms 21+ to book) Family: Moderate
American Federal-style brick facade of the Hermann-Grima House (1831) at 820 St. Louis Street in the New Orleans French Quarter.
Museum / Historical Site

Hermann-Grima House

New Orleans, LA

Built in 1831 by architect William Brand for German-Jewish immigrant cotton broker Samuel Hermann, this Federal-style townhouse passed to Judge Felix Grima's family in 1844 after Hermann's bankruptcy in the cotton panic of 1837. The Grima family occupied it until 1921. The Christian Woman's Exchange purchased the property in the 1920s and reopened it as a museum in 1975.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Beaux-Arts facade of Hotel Monteleone at 214 Royal Street in the New Orleans French Quarter, photographed from Royal Street
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Monteleone

New Orleans, LA

Hotel Monteleone has been owned and operated by five generations of the Monteleone family since Antonio Monteleone, a Sicilian immigrant cobbler, purchased a 64-room hotel at Royal and Iberville Streets in 1886. The current structure, substantially enlarged over the following decades, contains 570 rooms and is the only remaining family-owned luxury hotel in the French Quarter.

$$$ All Ages Family: High
Tropical interior courtyard with fountain at Hotel Provincial in the French Quarter of New Orleans, surrounded by historic Creole architecture.
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Provincial

New Orleans, LA

Hotel Provincial opened in 1961 in a complex of historic French Quarter buildings on Chartres Street. The complex includes Building 5, which served as a Confederate military hospital during the Civil War, treating wounded soldiers brought back from regional battles. Original buildings on the property were lost to fires in 1874 and 1878 and were rebuilt; current structures incorporate surviving 19th-century walls. The hotel remains family-owned and operates as a boutique property in the French Quarter.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Red-brick front entrance of Hotel Saint Vincent at 1507 Magazine Street in New Orleans, formerly St. Vincent's Infant Asylum
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Saint Vincent

New Orleans, LA

Founded in 1861 by Irish immigrant philanthropist Margaret Haughery as St. Vincent's Infant Asylum, the red-brick building sheltered orphans of yellow fever and cholera epidemics for over a century under the Daughters of Charity. It operated as a budget guest house from the late 1990s before being acquired and reopened in 2021 as the 75-room Hotel Saint Vincent.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Villa Convento

New Orleans, LA

The Hotel Villa Convento at 616 Ursulines Avenue is a Creole townhouse built in or around 1833 on land sold off by the Ursuline nuns. Its first owner was Jean Baptiste Poeyfarre. The building later served as a residence and a rooming house. The Campo family acquired the property in September 1981 and operates it as a small family-run guest house. Local lore identifies the building as the original 'House of the Rising Sun' of the Animals' 1964 song, though no archival evidence definitively links the song to this property.

$$ All Ages (guest rooms 18+ to book) Family: Moderate
Above-ground tombs and society vaults at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in the Garden District of New Orleans, Louisiana
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1

New Orleans, LA

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans's Garden District was established in 1833 by the City of Lafayette, then a separate municipality from New Orleans. The cemetery's above-ground tombs and society vaults serve a multi-ethnic immigrant population. The site is temporarily closed for repairs as of 2024-2025; tours operate from the gates.

$ All Ages Family: High
Briquette-entre-poteaux French Colonial townhouse housing Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop bar on Bourbon Street in the New Orleans French Quarter
Haunted Dining / Bar

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop

New Orleans, LA

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop at 941 Bourbon Street in New Orleans is a French Colonial townhouse built between 1772 and 1791. The briquette-entre-poteaux structure is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the French Quarter and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. It has operated as a bar since the 1940s.

$$ 21+ Family: Not Recommended
Exterior of the LaLaurie Mansion, an Empire-style townhouse at 1140 Royal Street in the New Orleans French Quarter
Haunted House / Historic Home

LaLaurie Mansion

New Orleans, LA

The LaLaurie Mansion at 1140 Royal Street in New Orleans was built in 1832 by Delphine Macarty LaLaurie. An April 10, 1834 fire revealed enslaved people who had been tortured and confined in the attic. A mob sacked the house; LaLaurie fled to France. The current Empire-style building dates to an 1838 reconstruction. The property is a private residence.

$ All Ages (exterior viewing only) Family: Low
Open Graph image from www.frenchquarterguesthouses.com
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Lamothe House Hotel

New Orleans, LA

The Lamothe House Hotel at 621 Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans was built around 1839 by Jean Lamothe, a wealthy sugar cane planter, after his sister Marie Virginia Lamothe purchased the land in 1829. The double townhouse design was among the first of its kind on Esplanade Avenue. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Le Pavillon Hotel exterior, historic high-rise hotel in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Le Pavillon, New Orleans, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel

New Orleans, LA

Le Pavillon Hotel opened in 1907 as the New Hotel Denechaud at 833 Poydras Street in New Orleans' Central Business District. Designed in the French Renaissance style with the city's first hydraulic elevator, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 and joined Historic Hotels of America in 1994. It now operates as a Marriott Tribute Portfolio property.

$$$ All Ages Family: High
Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre exterior in New Orleans French Quarter near Jackson Square
Theater / Performance Venue

Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre

New Orleans, LA

Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre was founded in 1916 by a group of amateur theater enthusiasts in New Orleans and moved to its permanent home at 616 St. Peter Street in 1922. Architect Richard Koch designed the building in Spanish Colonial style, incorporating a surviving 1790s colonial structure at the corner. It is one of the nation's oldest continuously operating community theater organizations.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Exterior of Hotel Le Richelieu, a 1845 boutique hotel with red brick facade and wrought iron balconies on Chartres Street in the New Orleans French Quarter.
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Le Richelieu

New Orleans, LA

Hotel Le Richelieu occupies a row of mid-nineteenth-century townhouses at 1234 Chartres Street in the lower French Quarter of New Orleans, near the boundary with the Faubourg Marigny. The hotel has operated continuously since the 1960s and has hosted a notable roster of musicians, including Paul McCartney during the 1975-1976 Wings Venus and Mars recording sessions at Sea-Saint Studios.

$$$ All Ages Family: High
Stuccoed French Colonial facade of the Old Ursuline Convent (1752), oldest building in the Mississippi Valley, on Chartres Street in the New Orleans French Quarter.
Other Dark Tourism Site

Old Ursuline Convent

New Orleans, LA

The Old Ursuline Convent at 1100 Chartres Street was completed in 1752 and is the oldest surviving building in the Mississippi River Valley. It served as the convent of the Ursuline nuns - who arrived in New Orleans in 1727 - and as the city's principal hospital, orphanage, and girls' school for much of the colonial period. After the convent moved in the 19th century, the building became the archbishop's residence and later the Catholic Cultural Center; it is open today as the Old Ursuline Convent Museum.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Historic c.1900 view of the Old US Mint in New Orleans (1835) seen from the levee near Governor Nicholas Wharf, now home to the New Orleans Jazz Museum.
Museum / Historical Site

Old US Mint (New Orleans Jazz Museum)

New Orleans, LA

Designed by William Strickland in Greek Revival style and opened in 1835, the New Orleans Mint is the only U.S. facility to have served as both a U.S. and Confederate mint. It coined money intermittently until 1909 and was decommissioned in 1911. Since 1981 it has operated as a Louisiana State Museum branch and now houses the New Orleans Jazz Museum.

$ All Ages Family: High
Stucco facade of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church (Old Mortuary Chapel), the oldest surviving church in New Orleans, on North Rampart Street
Other Dark Tourism Site

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church (Old Mortuary Chapel)

New Orleans, LA

Built in 1826-27 as the Chapel of St. Anthony of Padua, also called the Mortuary Chapel, to hold funerals for yellow-fever victims outside the original city limits — corpses were thought to spread contagion in St. Louis Cathedral. It is the oldest surviving church building in New Orleans. Renamed Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1918 and now home to the International Shrine of St. Jude.

$ All Ages Family: High
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Place d'Armes Hotel

New Orleans, LA

The Place d'Armes Hotel opened in 1969 on a French Quarter parcel a half-block from Jackson Square, occupying eight renovated 19th-century townhomes built around a central courtyard with a pool. Hotel materials state that the site was previously home to a Capuchin school - sometimes called the first school in French colonial Louisiana - that was destroyed in the 1788 Good Friday fire. The colonial school connection rests primarily on the hotel's own published history; the broader fire of March 21, 1788 is documented to have destroyed 856 of the city's 1,100 buildings.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Three-spire facade of St. Louis Cathedral facing Jackson Square in the New Orleans French Quarter, America's oldest continuously active Catholic cathedral
Other Dark Tourism Site

St. Louis Cathedral

New Orleans, LA

The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France stands on Jackson Square in the New Orleans French Quarter and is the oldest continuously active Catholic cathedral in the United States. The parish was established in 1720; the first church (1727) burned in the Great New Orleans Fire of 1788, the second building was completed in 1794 and dedicated as a cathedral, and the present structure dates primarily to a major 1850 rebuilding. Pope Paul VI designated it a minor basilica in 1964.

$ All Ages Family: High
Whitewashed above-ground tombs at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, Louisiana
Cemetery / Burial Ground

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

New Orleans, LA

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is the oldest surviving cemetery in New Orleans, established in 1789 after a fire and yellow-fever epidemic destroyed the previous burying ground. Its above-ground tombs hold generations of French, Spanish, Creole, free people of color, and enslaved African burials. The Archdiocese restricted general public access in 2015.

$$ All Ages — children accompanied by adults Family: Moderate
Whitewashed above-ground tombs and crypts at St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 in New Orleans, the 1823 burial ground on North Claiborne Avenue.
Cemetery / Burial Ground

St. Louis Cemetery No. 2

New Orleans, LA

Established in 1823 to relieve the overcrowding of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, St. Louis No. 2 was built during a period of frequent yellow fever and cholera epidemics. It is laid out in the New Orleans 'above-ground' style with thousands of family vaults and wall ovens, and contains the graves of jazz, Creole, and free-people-of-color community leaders.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Entrance archway to St. Roch Cemetery (Campo Santo) in New Orleans, Louisiana
Cemetery / Burial Ground

St. Roch Cemetery

New Orleans, LA

St. Roch Cemetery and Chapel were dedicated on September 6, 1875, by Reverend Peter Thevis, the German-born pastor of Holy Trinity Church, in fulfillment of a vow he made during the 1867 yellow-fever epidemic. The site became a major Catholic pilgrimage destination, and its chapel side-room holds an accumulated collection of ex-voto offerings left by pilgrims healed through prayer.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Exterior of the Andrew Jackson Hotel at 919 Royal Street in the New Orleans French Quarter, on the site of an 1794 Spanish Colonial boys' school and orphanage
Haunted Hotel / Inn

The Andrew Jackson Hotel

New Orleans, LA

The site at 919 Royal Street was originally a Spanish Colonial-era boys' boarding school and orphanage opened in 1792 for boys orphaned by yellow fever. The school was destroyed in the Great New Orleans Fire of 1794, in which five boys died. A U.S. Federal Courthouse later occupied the site, and the current hotel building was erected in 1890.

$$$ 21+ Family: Not Recommended
Italianate facade and white columned porch of The Columns Hotel, an 1883 mansion on St. Charles Avenue in Uptown New Orleans
Haunted Hotel / Inn

The Columns Hotel

New Orleans, LA

Built 1883-1884 as a private home for wealthy tobacco merchant Simon Hernsheim, the three-story Italianate mansion was designed by prolific New Orleans architect Thomas Sully and is the only remaining example of his Italianate work. It was converted to a boarding house during World War I and became a hotel in 1953.

$$$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Aerial survey view of The Morgue Bar and Lounge (Former)
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Other Dark Tourism Site

The Morgue Bar and Lounge (Former)

New Orleans, LA

The 1849 Creole townhouse at 626 St. Philip Street in the New Orleans French Quarter served as a makeshift morgue during the catastrophic 1853 yellow fever epidemic. The building later operated as the Morgue Bar and Lounge, a themed cocktail bar referencing the address's nineteenth-century role.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
The Old Absinthe House corner building at 240 Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana
Haunted Dining / Bar

The Old Absinthe House

New Orleans, LA

The Old Absinthe House occupies a corner building at 240 Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The structure was built in 1806 as a commission house and corner grocery; the ground floor was converted to a saloon in 1815, and the famous Absinthe House Frappe was created behind the bar in 1874 by mixologist Cayetano Ferrer.

$$ 21+ at the bar; underage visitors restricted by Louisiana alcohol law Family: Not Recommended

Baton Rouge — 13

True Crime Site

1972 Baton Rouge North Boulevard Shooting Site

Baton Rouge, LA

On January 10, 1972, a confrontation between Baton Rouge police officers and Nation of Islam demonstrators on North Boulevard turned violent, leaving two sheriff's deputies and three demonstrators dead and 31 people wounded. Governor John McKeithen deployed 700 National Guard troops and imposed a citywide curfew. Nine Black men were convicted in a 1976 trial. The Louisiana Supreme Court subsequently reversed those convictions, a rarely discussed chapter of Louisiana's civil rights era.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Photo of Baton Rouge National Cemetery
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Baton Rouge National Cemetery

Baton Rouge, LA

Established in 1868 under the federal national cemetery program, Baton Rouge National Cemetery was created to consolidate the graves of Union soldiers who died in Louisiana and neighboring Arkansas during the Civil War. It holds nearly 3,000 graves, approximately 500 of them belonging to unidentified soldiers whose remains were relocated from sites at Plaquemine, Louisiana, and Camden, Arkansas.

$ All Ages Family: High
Aerial survey view of Guaranty Broadcasting Building (Former Baton Rouge General Hospital)
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Other Dark Tourism Site

Guaranty Broadcasting Building (Former Baton Rouge General Hospital)

Baton Rouge, LA

From 1927 to January 30, 1950, 929 Government Street operated as the Baton Rouge General Hospital, a 62-bed facility whose ground floor served as the hospital morgue. The morgue was later repurposed as a cafeteria and then for file storage when Guaranty Broadcasting acquired the building. The structure remains in use today as the headquarters of Guaranty Media.

$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center

Baton Rouge, LA

The Heidelberg Hotel opened in 1927 at the corner of Lafayette Street and St. Charles Street in downtown Baton Rouge. In 1931, Governor Huey Long used it as his base of operations during a political standoff with Lt. Gov. Paul Cyr — who had declared himself governor — effectively making the Heidelberg the de facto Louisiana state capitol for a period. Long had a tunnel constructed connecting the hotel to the adjacent King Hotel. Long was assassinated at the State Capitol on September 8, 1935. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

$$$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of ajoh123.
Other Dark Tourism Site

Louisiana State University — Pleasant Hall

Baton Rouge, LA

Pleasant Hall at Louisiana State University was built in 1931 as the university's first women's dormitory, originally named Smith Hall after President James Monroe Smith. The building operated as a dormitory until 2002, when it was converted to house the continuing education department. It now serves as classroom and office space.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Aerial survey view of LSU Evangeline Hall
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Other Dark Tourism Site

LSU Evangeline Hall

Baton Rouge, LA

Evangeline Hall was constructed in 1930 as one of LSU's earliest residence halls, built during a period of rapid campus expansion under Governor Huey Long's administration. It remains among the oldest dormitories on the Baton Rouge campus.

$ All Ages Family: High
Aerial survey view of LSU Pleasant Hall
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Other Dark Tourism Site

LSU Pleasant Hall

Baton Rouge, LA

Pleasant Hall was built in 1931 as Smith Hall, a women's residence hall on the Louisiana State University campus in Baton Rouge. At some point the building transitioned to hotel use before returning to university administration. A documented violent incident in Room 312 — a double death involving a female student and her boyfriend — became the basis for the building's reputation as one of the more reliably reported haunted locations on the LSU campus.

$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Magnolia Cemetery
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Magnolia Cemetery

Baton Rouge, LA

Established in the 1820s and among the oldest surviving cemeteries in Baton Rouge, Magnolia Cemetery gained a grim distinction on August 5, 1862, when the Battle of Baton Rouge pushed Confederate and Union infantry into its grounds. Soldiers used the tomb walls and iron fencing as firing positions; the Confederate dead from the engagement were buried afterward in a mass grave on the cemetery's grounds. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Museum / Historical Site

Old Arsenal Museum & Powder Magazine

Baton Rouge, LA

Constructed between 1836 and 1838 by the U.S. Army, the powder magazine is one of only two surviving buildings from the Baton Rouge Arsenal and Ordnance Depot. It held up to 3,000 barrels of gunpowder and withstood artillery fire during the August 5, 1862 Battle of Baton Rouge. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, the restored structure now serves as a museum operated by the Louisiana Secretary of State.

$ All Ages Family: High
Castle-like Gothic Revival exterior of Louisiana's Old State Capitol with crenellated towers above the Mississippi River bluff in Baton Rouge
Museum / Historical Site

Louisiana's Old State Capitol

Baton Rouge, LA

Louisiana's Old State Capitol at 100 North Blvd in Baton Rouge was built in the mid-19th century as a Gothic Revival structure on the bluff above the Mississippi River. It served as the state capitol until the early 20th century. During the Civil War, the building was occupied by Union forces and used as a hospital and prison for soldiers. The museum is currently operated by the Louisiana Secretary of State's office.

$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Pentagon Barracks
Museum / Historical Site

Pentagon Barracks

Baton Rouge, LA

Designed by Army Captain James Gadsden and built between 1819 and 1825 on the site of the demolished Spanish Fort San Carlos, the Pentagon Barracks formed a five-sided complex of brick buildings around a central courtyard. The site served as a U.S. Army post, functioned briefly as Louisiana State University's first campus in the 1860s, and was occupied by both Confederate and Union forces during the Civil War. Today the buildings serve as apartments for Louisiana state legislators.

$ All Ages Family: High
Aerial survey view of Spanish Moon (Former Site)
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Other Dark Tourism Site

Spanish Moon (Former Site)

Baton Rouge, LA

The building at 1109 Highland Road was constructed in the 1880s and functioned as a firehouse before transitioning to use as a Baton Rouge General Hospital annex. During the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, local accounts hold that the basement morgue was used to store the bodies of approximately 250 flood victims. The building later became the Spanish Moon music venue, which operated from 1997 until it closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022 it was purchased by TILT, a Baton Rouge creative agency, which converted the 5,500-square-foot space into its headquarters.

$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of USS Kidd Veterans Museum
Museum / Historical Site

USS Kidd Veterans Museum

Baton Rouge, LA

USS Kidd (DD-661) is a Fletcher-class destroyer named for Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, killed aboard USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Commissioned in 1943, the Kidd served in the Pacific and was struck by a Japanese kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa on April 11, 1945, killing 38 sailors. She is now moored on the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge in her exact 1945 configuration — the only Fletcher-class destroyer in the country preserved in her WWII appearance.

$$ All Ages Family: Low

Shreveport — 7

Photo of Caddo Parish Courthouse
Other Dark Tourism Site

Caddo Parish Courthouse

Shreveport, LA

The Caddo Parish Courthouse, completed in 1926 on a site that has hosted courthouses since 1860, operated a jail and gallows on its upper floors where seven men were executed by hanging between the 1920s and 1934. The building also housed a coroner's office in its basement for decades.

$ All Ages Family: High
Prison / Reformatory

Caddo Parish Penal Farm (The Pea Farm)

Shreveport, LA

The Caddo Parish Penal Farm, known as the Pea Farm, was established in 1905 on the former Caddo Parish plantation of Caesar Carpentier Antoine — Louisiana's Reconstruction-era Black Lieutenant Governor. The self-sustaining jail housed the parish's most violent offenders until it was phased out in the 1960s. The vine-covered ruins still stand off West 70th Street, surrounded by industrial development.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Photo of Logan Mansion
Haunted House / Historic Home

Logan Mansion

Shreveport, LA

Built in 1897 by Lafayette Robert Logan and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Logan Mansion is a well-preserved example of late-Victorian domestic architecture in Shreveport's historic Austin Place neighborhood. Current owners operate the mansion as a historic events venue.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Oakland Cemetery
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Oakland Cemetery

Shreveport, LA

Founded in 1836 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, Oakland Cemetery holds a mass grave of more than 800 victims of the 1873 yellow fever epidemic — an outbreak that killed roughly one quarter of Shreveport's population in approximately three months.

$ All Ages Family: High
Haunted House / Historic Home

Ogilvie-Wiener Mansion

Shreveport, LA

Built in 1896, the Ogilvie-Wiener Mansion is the oldest surviving Queen Anne-style Victorian building in Shreveport. At 9,000 square feet, it passed through two prominent grocery dynasty families before becoming Shreveport's first openly gay bar in the early 1980s, and was later featured in HBO's True Blood opening credit sequence.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Shreveport Municipal Auditorium
Theater / Performance Venue

Shreveport Municipal Auditorium

Shreveport, LA

Built in 1929 in downtown Shreveport, the Municipal Auditorium became one of the most consequential small venues in American music history as the broadcast home of the Louisiana Hayride radio show. Its basement briefly served as Shreveport's city morgue before being converted to dressing rooms.

$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Spring Street Historical Museum
Museum / Historical Site

Spring Street Historical Museum

Shreveport, LA

The Spring Street Historical Museum occupies the Tally's Bank Building, constructed in the 1860s and considered one of the oldest remaining commercial structures in downtown Shreveport. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is affiliated with Louisiana State University Shreveport.

$ All Ages Family: High

Lake Charles — 5

Theater / Performance Venue

ACTS Theatre

Lake Charles, LA

ACTS Theatre is the only pre-WWII theatre structure still standing in Lake Charles. The building occupies a site marked by a 1952 fire death — William Portie, a neighborhood fixture known for selling candy from a basket to local children, died of smoke inhalation in an apartment above an adjacent grocery fire on April 21, 1952.

$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Calcasieu Parish Courthouse
True Crime Site

Calcasieu Parish Courthouse

Lake Charles, LA

The Calcasieu Parish Courthouse in Lake Charles served as the site of Louisiana's last judicial electrocution of a woman. On November 28, 1942, Annie Beatrice McQuiston Henry — known as Toni Jo Henry — was put to death in the courthouse basement.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Museum / Historical Site

Imperial Calcasieu Museum — Haunted Histories Exhibit

Lake Charles, LA

The Imperial Calcasieu Museum in downtown Lake Charles operates as the primary regional history institution for Southwest Louisiana and home to the 'Haunted Histories' permanent exhibit. The exhibit covers the 1910 Great Fire, the 1940 electric-chair execution of Toni Jo Henry, and regional dark history and legends from Calcasieu Parish and surrounding areas.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Haunted House / Historic Home

John Reid House

Lake Charles, LA

The John Reid House is a three-story mansion in Lake Charles's Charpentier Historic District, standing for over 110 years. It was home to Sheriff D.J. Reid and his family, and became entwined in the story of the 1910 Great Fire that devastated Lake Charles.

$ All Ages Family: High
Theater / Performance Venue

Rosa Hart Theatre

Lake Charles, LA

The Rosa Hart Theatre occupies a corner of the Lake Charles Civic Center complex on the lakefront, built in the 1970s. The surrounding area has historical ties to Gerstner Field, a World War I Army Air Corps training facility that operated nearby.

$ All Ages Family: High

Alexandria — 3

Photo of Alexandria Zoological Park
Other Dark Tourism Site

Alexandria Zoological Park

Alexandria, LA

The Alexandria Zoological Park was established in 1926 in Bringhurst Park as a modest collection of caged animals. By the late 1960s the zoo faced closure under USDA pressure, prompting the creation of the Friends of the Alexandria Zoo (FOTAZ) support organization. Robert Leslie Whitt was hired as director in 1974 and spent 34 years transforming the facility into a 33-acre zoo with approximately 500 animals. He died of a heart attack six days before his 56th birthday. Hurricane Laura in 2020 caused extensive damage and the zoo was closed for repairs, reopening March 12, 2021.

$ All Ages Family: High
Haunted Dining / Bar

The Diamond Grill

Alexandria, LA

The building at 924 Third Street in Alexandria was originally constructed in 1865 by Scottish immigrants who opened a jewelry store near the Red River, capitalizing on the shipping traffic that moved through the city. The jewelry business later passed to Carl A. Schnack, a German immigrant owner who operated it through the mid-twentieth century. When Schnack's jewelry business relocated in the 1990s, a local attorney — a descendant of the original builder — purchased the Art Deco structure and converted it into an upscale restaurant named The Diamond Grill as a tribute to the building's commercial history.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Hotel Bentley
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Hotel Bentley

Alexandria, LA

Hotel Bentley was built in 1907 and opened in August 1908 by timber baron Joseph Bentley at a cost of $700,000. Designed by architect George R. Mann in a Renaissance Revival style, the hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 1979. During World War II it served as a base of operations for Generals Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and Stilwell conducting the Louisiana Maneuvers — large-scale military training exercises held in central Louisiana from 1940 to 1941. The hotel was purchased by Michael Jenkins in 2012 for $3.4 million and reopened after renovation.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Lafayette — 3

Haunted Dining / Bar

Cafe Vermilionville

Lafayette, LA

Built around 1835 as an inn on the Old Spanish Trail, Cafe Vermilionville is one of the oldest standing structures in Lafayette. During the Civil War, Union forces used the building as a headquarters and military infirmary. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Aerial survey view of St. John Cemetery
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Cemetery / Burial Ground

St. John Cemetery

Lafayette, LA

St. John Cemetery was established in 1821 next to St. John's Cathedral in what would become downtown Lafayette. It is among the oldest cemeteries in the Acadiana region and holds thousands of early settlers including town founder Jean Mouton, Confederate general Alfred Mouton, and U.S. Ambassador Jefferson Caffery.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Ruston — 3

Museum / Historical Site

Biomedical Engineering Building (CREST Building)

Ruston, LA

The Biomedical Engineering Building opened in 1928 as Ruston-Lincoln Sanitarium with morgue on the first floor and surgical suite on the fourth. It transitioned to a nursing home in 1963 and remained in operation until the 1970s. Louisiana Tech University acquired it for research purposes and currently operates it as the CREST Building.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate
Photo of Dixie Center for the Arts
Theater / Performance Venue

Dixie Center for the Arts

Ruston, LA

The building at 212 N Vienna Street in Ruston has operated as a theater since 1928, when it opened as the Astor Theater for silent films and live concerts. It became the Rialto in 1932, then the Dixie Theater after the Dixie Theater Corporation of New Orleans purchased it and reopened it in 1956 with air conditioning and a flashing neon star. A restoration effort returned the venue to active use in 2006 as the Dixie Center for the Arts. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 14, 1993, and became a contributing property of the Downtown Ruston Historic District in 2017.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Exterior of Howard Auditorium at Louisiana Tech University, the 1940 Streamline Moderne building on the campus quad in Ruston, Louisiana
Theater / Performance Venue

Louisiana Tech University — Howard Auditorium

Ruston, LA

Howard Auditorium at Louisiana Tech University was constructed between 1938 and 1940 as part of a campus expansion funded through federal programs. Architect Edward F. Neild designed the 3,000-seat building in Streamline Moderne style, and it was named for Harry Howard — the university's first graduate and its treasurer for 40 years. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

$ All Ages Family: High

St. Francisville — 3

Photo of Afton Villa Gardens
Outdoor / Natural Site

Afton Villa Gardens

St. Francisville, LA

David Barrow, the wealthiest planter in West Feliciana Parish, built a 40-room Gothic Revival mansion at Afton Villa beginning in 1849. The estate's name was drawn from Robert Burns's poem 'Sweet Afton.' Senator Alexander Barrow, whose Congressional memorial obelisk still stands in the family cemetery, is among the notable figures interred on the property. The mansion was completely destroyed by fire on March 7, 1963; the 25-acre historic gardens and cemetery survived and remain open to the public.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Grace Episcopal Church and Cemetery
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Grace Episcopal Church and Cemetery

St. Francisville, LA

Grace Episcopal Church was established in 1827 as one of Louisiana's earliest Protestant congregations. The current Gothic Revival building was completed in 1860. In 1863, Union gunboats shelled the church during military operations along the Mississippi River, damaging the structure. The adjacent cemetery holds figures from both armies of the Civil War and is associated with the story of Union Navy officer John Elliott Hart, whose 1863 burial by local Confederates has given rise to an annual 'Day the War Stopped' observance. The church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site
Haunted House / Historic Home

Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site

St. Francisville, LA

Daniel and Martha Barrow Turnbull built Rosedown in 1835 on a cotton estate that would grow to approximately 3,500 acres, producing some of the highest-valued crops in antebellum Louisiana. The plantation's prosperity depended on the labor of enslaved people; the Turnbulls kept detailed records including Martha's garden journal and estate accounts. The family suffered successive losses in the following decades. Rosedown was designated a National Historic Landmark and is now a Louisiana State Historic Site open for daily guided tours.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Gibsland — 2

True Crime Site

Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Site (Highway 154)

Gibsland, LA

On May 23, 1934, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow drove south on Louisiana Highway 154 from Gibsland after eating breakfast at Ma Canfield's Café. A six-officer posse concealed in the brush — including former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer — opened fire on their Ford V8 without warning. The two were struck by approximately 130 rounds and died at the scene. Two granite monuments mark the roadside pull-off; the markers have been repeatedly vandalized and were most recently replaced in October 2024.

$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Bonnie & Clyde Ambush Museum
True Crime Site

Bonnie & Clyde Ambush Museum

Gibsland, LA

The building at 2419 Main Street was Ma Canfield's Café, where Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow ate breakfast on the morning of May 23, 1934 — the last meal of their lives. They drove south on Highway 154 afterward and were killed by a six-officer posse that included Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. The café building now houses a museum of Bonnie-and-Clyde artifacts, including personal effects, photographs, and a replica of their bullet-riddled Ford V8.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Monroe — 2

Photo of Layton Castle
Haunted House / Historic Home

Layton Castle

Monroe, LA

Built in 1910 around the core of an 1814 plantation cottage known as Mulberry Grove, Layton Castle in Monroe has remained in the same family for six generations. The property includes a private burial ground where Georgette Layton, who died at approximately age ten from a lingering illness in 1901, is interred.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of Masur Museum of Art
Museum / Historical Site

Masur Museum of Art

Monroe, LA

Built in 1914 in the Modified Tudor style, the Slagle-Masur House in Monroe served as a private residence before becoming the Masur Museum of Art — the largest visual arts museum in northeast Louisiana. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

$ All Ages Family: High

New Iberia — 2

Exterior of the 1870 Joseph Jefferson Mansion at Rip Van Winkle Gardens on Jefferson Island, New Iberia, Louisiana, showing Moorish Revival towers and porches
Museum / Historical Site

Joseph Jefferson Mansion at Rip Van Winkle Gardens

New Iberia, LA

The Joseph Jefferson House was built in 1870 as a hunting lodge and painting studio for actor Joseph Jefferson, who portrayed Rip Van Winkle on stage more than 4,500 times. The 22-room Moorish Revival and Gothic Revival house sits atop the Jefferson Island salt dome at an elevation of 75 feet — unusual for coastal south Louisiana. It is now operated as a museum and gardens by the Bayless family.

$$ All Ages Family: High
Haunted House / Historic Home

Shadows-on-the-Teche

New Iberia, LA

Shadows-on-the-Teche was built between 1831 and 1834 for David Weeks, a Louisiana sugar planter, on a 2,000-acre estate along Bayou Teche. The property was worked by hundreds of enslaved people and passed to Mary Moore, David's widow, after his death in 1834. Mary died in the house on December 29, 1863, as Union troops occupied it during the Red River Campaign. The National Trust for Historic Preservation acquired the property in 1958 and has operated it as a house museum ever since.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Opelousas — 2

Museum / Historical Site

Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center

Opelousas, LA

The 1935 building at 315 N Main Street in Opelousas has served as Sibille's Funeral Home, a church, and a public library before housing the city museum and interpretive center. It holds Civil War relics and a barbershop chair documented as the one in which Clyde Barrow received his last haircut shortly before the May 1934 Bienville Parish ambush that killed him and Bonnie Parker.

$ All Ages Family: High
Photo of St. Landry Parish Courthouse
True Crime Site

St. Landry Parish Courthouse

Opelousas, LA

Five courthouse buildings have occupied this corner in Opelousas since the parish's organization in 1806. The 1847 structure served briefly as Louisiana's Confederate state capitol around 1862 when Union forces threatened Baton Rouge. The third-floor jail in that building was the site of two hangings and one electrocution before the current 1939 structure replaced it.

$ All Ages Family: High

Angola — 1

Prison / Reformatory

Red Hat Cell Block, Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola)

Angola, LA

The Red Hat Cell Block was built in 1935 at Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) as a punitive solitary-confinement unit for the facility's most difficult inmates, who were forced to wear distinctive red-painted straw hats as a mark of their punishment status. From 1956 to 1961, it housed the state's execution chamber and electric chair; eleven men were put to death there. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, it is now part of the Angola Prison Museum's public bus tours.

$ All Ages Family: Low

Broussard — 1

Aerial survey view of Mary Jane's Bridge
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Outdoor / Natural Site

Mary Jane's Bridge

Broussard, LA

Mary Jane's Bridge is a road bridge on Bayou Tortue Road near Broussard, Louisiana, where Parish Road 140 and the bayou road intersect south of Highway 90. The bridge serves as the setting for one of Acadiana's most persistent and widely documented urban legends — a story of a young woman killed on prom night whose body was never recovered from the bayou. No historical incident matching the legend's details has been verified.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Buras — 1

Main entrance and moat of Fort Jackson, the 1832 masonry fortification in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.
Battlefield / Military Site

Fort Jackson

Buras, LA

Fort Jackson is a National Historic Landmark masonry fort 40 miles up the Mississippi River from its mouth, in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. Constructed between 1822 and 1832 as coastal defense for New Orleans, the fort was the site of the 12-day Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip in April 1862, after which Union forces captured New Orleans.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Centerville — 1

Haunted House / Historic Home

Susie Plantation

Centerville, LA

Susie Plantation was built between 1848 and 1852 by Royal and Adeline Harris as a working sugar cane and rice plantation along Bayou Teche in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. After Royal's death in 1858, his widow remarried John H. Darnall. Their daughter Adeliza E. Harris is interred in an above-ground tomb on the grounds, where she died in the early 1870s.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Chalmette — 1

Exterior of the Malus-Beauregard House at Chalmette Battlefield, the 1832 Greek Revival plantation house overlooking the Battle of New Orleans site in Chalmette, Louisiana
Battlefield / Military Site

Chalmette Battlefield

Chalmette, LA

Chalmette Battlefield, a unit of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, preserves the ground where Major General Andrew Jackson's forces decisively defeated the British on January 8, 1815, in the Battle of New Orleans. The site includes the Chalmette Monument, the restored American rampart line, the Greek Revival Malus-Beauregard House, and the adjacent Chalmette National Cemetery.

$ All Ages Family: High

Darrow — 1

Photo of Houmas House Plantation
Haunted Hotel / Inn

Houmas House Plantation

Darrow, LA

Houmas House has been an agricultural estate for roughly 250 years, passing through French, Spanish, and American ownership before becoming one of the largest sugar-producing plantations in antebellum Louisiana. The Greek Revival main house visible today was built in the 1840s. After the Civil War and Yellow Fever epidemics devastated the region, the estate fell into decline before being restored in the mid-twentieth century. It now operates as a hotel, restaurant, and event venue.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

DeRidder — 1

Gothic Revival concrete block facade of the Beauregard Parish Jail in DeRidder, Louisiana
Prison / Reformatory

Beauregard Parish Gothic Jail

DeRidder, LA

Built in 1914 in Gothic Revival style from cast concrete block, the Beauregard Parish Jail earned the nickname 'Hanging Jail' after the only execution carried out there on March 9, 1928, when two convicted murderers were hanged. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Destrehan — 1

Front facade of Destrehan Plantation manor house on River Road in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, oldest surviving plantation home in the lower Mississippi valley
Museum / Historical Site

Destrehan Plantation

Destrehan, LA

Destrehan Plantation at 13034 River Road, Destrehan, Louisiana, is the oldest surviving plantation home in the lower Mississippi valley. Built between 1787 and 1790 for Robert de Logny, the property passed to Jean Noël Destrehan in 1792 and became a major sugar operation by the early 19th century. The plantation served as a trial and execution site following the 1811 German Coast Uprising.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Edgerly — 1

Historic Big Woods Cemetery in Edgerly, Louisiana, with massive oak canopy and grave markers
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Big Woods Cemetery

Edgerly, LA

Big Woods Cemetery was officially consecrated in 1827 when wealthy Louisiana resident James Bryan donated a dozen acres of land for burial purposes. The cemetery served as a primary burial ground for the Edgerly community, with the nearby Big Woods Baptist Church providing spiritual context. The cemetery has been expanded multiple times throughout its nearly 200-year history.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Elizabeth — 1

Exterior of the 1924 Elizabeth Hospital Building, now Elizabeth Town Hall, on Poplar Street in Elizabeth, Allen Parish, Louisiana
Museum / Historical Site

Elizabeth Town Hall (Former Industrial Lumber Hospital)

Elizabeth, LA

The Elizabeth Hospital Building, completed in 1924, served the company town of Elizabeth, Louisiana, founded by the Industrial Lumber Company in 1907. The two-story frame structure operated as the company hospital until the lumber operation declined, after which the building was repurposed as the Elizabeth Town Hall.

$ All Ages Family: High

Elm Grove — 1

Aerial survey view of Taylortown Tower
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Other Dark Tourism Site

Taylortown Tower

Elm Grove, LA

The Taylortown Tower is the surviving brick bell tower of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Taylortown, a small plantation village in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, on US-71 near Elm Grove. The church was built in the early 1900s (sources date it to roughly 1906-1911) and later abandoned as the congregation dwindled; the building fell into ruin and burned, leaving only the bell tower standing in a field.

$ All Ages Family: High

Eunice — 1

Aerial survey view of Miller Cemetery (Headless Cemetery)
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Miller Cemetery (Headless Cemetery)

Eunice, LA

Miller Cemetery, also called Headless Cemetery in local folklore, is a small late-19th-century burial ground on Miller Cemetery Road north of Eunice, Louisiana. It contains the grave of Alexandre Miller, one of early Eunice's prominent residents, and remains an active cemetery for the surrounding Cajun Prairie community.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Houma — 1

The two-story 1858 Southdown Plantation House with wraparound porches and pink Victorian trim in Houma, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.
Museum / Historical Site

Southdown Plantation House

Houma, LA

Southdown Plantation in Houma, Louisiana sits along Little Bayou Black on land first granted under Spanish rule in the 1790s. William J. Minor and James Dinsmore established the plantation in 1828 and shifted it from indigo to sugarcane in 1831. The 1858 main house was donated in 1975 and opened as a museum in 1982. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

$$ All Ages Family: High

Jackson — 1

Asylum / Hospital

East Louisiana State Hospital

Jackson, LA

The Louisiana Legislature created East Louisiana State Hospital in 1847; it was operational by 1848 on a campus in East Feliciana Parish featuring Greek Revival architecture. Over 4,000 patients are buried in an on-site cemetery that went unmaintained for decades. The facility continues to operate as an active state psychiatric hospital.

$ All Ages Family: High

Keatchie — 1

Museum / Historical Site

Keatchi Women's College

Keatchie, LA

Keatchie Female College was founded in 1857 by the Grand Cane Association of Baptist Churches in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana. Following the Battle of Mansfield on April 8, 1864 — one of the last major Confederate victories in the Trans-Mississippi theater — the college's second floor was converted into a field hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers. Many who died there were buried in the Confederate Memorial Cemetery adjacent to the campus.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Mansfield — 1

Aerial survey view of Mansfield State Historic Site (Battle of Mansfield)
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Battlefield / Military Site

Mansfield State Historic Site (Battle of Mansfield)

Mansfield, LA

The Battle of Mansfield on April 8, 1864 was the decisive engagement of the Union's Red River Campaign and the last major Confederate victory of the Civil War. Confederate General Richard Taylor's 9,000-man force routed a 13,000-man Union army under General Nathaniel Banks in the afternoon fighting, inflicting over 2,200 Union casualties and capturing 20 artillery pieces and several hundred supply wagons. The defeat ended the Union's strategic threat to Confederate Texas and its cotton supply.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Natchitoches — 1

Photo of American Cemetery
Cemetery / Burial Ground

American Cemetery

Natchitoches, LA

The American Cemetery at 200 Second Street in Natchitoches is described as the oldest cemetery in the Louisiana Purchase, established by 1737 on the grounds of a French colonial fort. Natchitoches itself was founded in 1714 as the oldest permanent European settlement in the Louisiana Purchase territory. The cemetery contains burials from across the colonial, territorial, and antebellum periods.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Pineville — 1

Photo of Rapides Cemetery
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Rapides Cemetery

Pineville, LA

Rapides Cemetery sits on bluffs above the Red River in Pineville where European colonial activity has been documented since approximately 1722. The burial ground was formally established between 1774 and May 1798 and is recognized as the oldest cemetery in Rapides Parish. The Rapides Cemetery Association was founded in 1872 to restore and maintain the grounds. The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 15, 1979.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Plaquemine — 1

Aerial survey view of Morrisonville Ghost Town Site
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Other Dark Tourism Site

Morrisonville Ghost Town Site

Plaquemine, LA

Morrisonville was an African American community founded in the 1870s by formerly enslaved people on land west of Plaquemine in Iberville Parish. Residents built churches, schools, and farms that persisted for more than a century. When Dow Chemical began vinyl chloride production adjacent to the community in 1958, contamination from chlorinated hydrocarbons eventually reached the groundwater. Dow bought out all remaining residents and the community was fully vacated by 1993. No structures survive; the site is accessible only through the church graveyard and an open prayer shelter Dow provides for returning families.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Rayne — 1

Aerial survey view of Hookmans Graveyard
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
Cemetery / Burial Ground

Hookmans Graveyard

Rayne, LA

Hookman's Cemetery — formally the McClelland Cemetery — is a small rural burial ground on Ohlenforst Road in Acadia Parish west of Roberts Cove. Established in the early twentieth century as an informal plot for residents who could not afford church cemetery burial, the site contains seven marked graves with dates ranging from 1891 to 1934 and has been abandoned and overgrown for decades.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

St. Martinville — 1

Photo of St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church
Cemetery / Burial Ground

St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church

St. Martinville, LA

St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church was founded in 1765 by Acadian exiles fleeing the British expulsion from Nova Scotia. It is recognized as one of the oldest Catholic parishes in the United States and the third oldest in Louisiana. The current building was completed in 1840 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The church retains the colonial-era practice of burying priests beneath the sanctuary floor.

$ All Ages Family: High

Stonewall — 1

The two-and-a-half-story 1859 Greek Revival Buena Vista Plantation mansion with one-story columned gallery near Stonewall in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana.
Haunted House / Historic Home

Buena Vista Plantation

Stonewall, LA

Buena Vista is an 1859 Greek Revival plantation house built for Boykin Witherspoon in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, near Stonewall. The two-and-a-half-story frame mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 and is documented for its octagonal-columned gallery, fluted pilasters, and central-hall plan. Local tradition holds that the house served as a Civil War hospital for Confederate wounded.

$ All Ages Family: High

Sunset — 1

Front elevation of the two-story brick Chretien Point Plantation house with double gallery porch, photographed in August 1936 by Richard Koch for the Historic American Buildings Survey
Haunted House / Historic Home

Chretien Point Plantation

Sunset, LA

Chretien Point is a two-story, twelve-room red-brick mansion on twenty acres along Bayou Bourbeaux, two miles southwest of Sunset, Louisiana. Construction began in 1831 under Hippolyte Chretien and completed in 1835. The plantation was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Vacherie — 1

Oak Alley Plantation mansion with its famous canopy of southern live oaks in Vacherie, Louisiana
Museum / Historical Site

Oak Alley Plantation

Vacherie, LA

Oak Alley Plantation at 3645 LA-18 in Vacherie, Louisiana, is a National Historic Landmark built in 1839 for sugar planter Jacques Telesphore Roman. The property is named for the double row of 28 live oak trees lining the approach to the main house, estimated to have been planted between 1700 and 1750 — roughly a century before the Greek Revival manor was constructed.

$$$ All Ages Family: High

Vidalia — 1

True Crime Site

Sandbar Fight Site & Marker (Vidalia)

Vidalia, LA

On September 19, 1827, a formal pistol duel on a temporary sandbar in the Mississippi River between Louisiana and Mississippi — arranged to settle a dispute between Natchez-area plantation rivals — escalated into a melee involving at least six men. Samuel Cuny and Major Norris Wright were killed. Jim Bowie, who had come as a second, killed Wright with a large hunting knife after surviving being shot and stabbed. Contemporaneous newspaper accounts spread the story nationally and established Bowie's knife as a cultural phenomenon.

$ All Ages Family: High

Wallace — 1

The Big House at Whitney Plantation historic memorial site in Wallace Louisiana
Museum / Historical Site

Whitney Plantation

Wallace, LA

Whitney Plantation opened to the public in 2014 as the only museum in Louisiana dedicated solely to the history of slavery in the United States. The site preserves 16 original structures across a plantation that operated under sugar and rice cultivation from 1752 to 1975, using the forced labor of approximately 350 enslaved people across the antebellum period.

$$ All Ages Family: Moderate

Washington — 1

Haunted Dining / Bar

Steamboat Warehouse Restaurant

Washington, LA

The Steamboat Warehouse on Main Street in Washington, Louisiana was constructed in the 1820s to store cotton from the surrounding St. Landry Parish farms, shipped via Bayou Courtableau. Washington is among Louisiana's oldest settlements, and this building is documented as the last surviving antebellum steamboat warehouse on the bayou. It has operated as a restaurant since 1977 under the management of the Huguet family.

$$ All Ages Family: High

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