The Oldest Cemetery in the Louisiana Purchase, Established 1737 on a Former French Colonial Fort
200 Second St, Natchitoches, LA 71457
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Cemetery grounds are free and open to the public during daylight hours. Ghost tours of Natchitoches including this site are ticketed separately through the Natchitoches Historic Foundation.
Access
Limited Access
Uneven historic cemetery grounds with mature trees; some sections have gravel or grass paths
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1737 · Oldest Cemetery in the Louisiana Purchase · French Colonial Fort Grounds · Natchitoches National Historic Landmark District · Burials from French, Spanish, and American Territorial Periods
Natchitoches was established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as a French colonial outpost and trading center, making it the oldest permanent settlement in what became the Louisiana Purchase. The cemetery at 200 Second Street traces its origins to the same era — local historians place its establishment at approximately 1737, when the French colonial fort on this site was still an active military installation.
The grounds contain burials dating to at least 1797, spanning the French, Spanish, American territorial, and early statehood periods. The cemetery became and remained the principal burial ground for Natchitoches's most prominent families and public figures through the nineteenth century.
Among the documented interments are a former mayor of Natchitoches who was murdered — a fact that figures in the site's ghost tour tradition — alongside other historically significant figures from the city's political and commercial life. The cemetery sits within the Natchitoches National Historic Landmark District, a federally recognized preservation area that encompasses the city's antebellum brick-paved downtown.
The site is administered as a public historic cemetery. Access during daylight hours is unrestricted. The Natchitoches Historic Foundation includes the cemetery as a featured stop on its annual October haunted history tours, which focus on documented historical figures rather than invented supernatural claims.
Sources
The Natchitoches Historic Foundation describes the American Cemetery as 'a silent sentinel of history and one of the most haunted places in Natchitoches, Louisiana.' The phrasing is characteristic of the tour organization's approach: factual anchoring to documented historical events rather than invented apparition stories.
The cemetery's most-cited paranormal hook is the grave of a former Natchitoches mayor who was murdered. The specific circumstances — the identity of the mayor, the nature of the killing — are part of the tour's oral history rather than broadly documented in published sources accessible during this research pass. That ambiguity itself reflects a common pattern at historic Southern cemeteries, where oral tradition outruns the documentary record.
The site's age and the density of its historical burials — three centuries of the city's most prominent figures laid within a compact urban cemetery — contribute to the weight its ghost tradition carries. The Natchitoches Historic Foundation's annual October tour uses the cemetery as a stage for historical storytelling about documented figures rather than as a venue for manufactured scares.
Notable Entities
The American Cemetery at 200 Second Street sits in the heart of the Natchitoches National Historic Landmark District. Established by 1737 on the grounds of a former French colonial fort, the grounds hold burials dating to at least 1797 alongside the full arc of Natchitoches history. Open to the public during daylight hours.
The Natchitoches Historic Foundation runs an annual October ghost tour that includes the American Cemetery as a featured stop. The tour focuses on documented historical figures buried in the cemetery and the paranormal traditions associated with them.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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