1772 French Quarter Tavern on Bourbon Street
941 Bourbon Street, New Orleans, LA 70116
Age
21+
Cost
$$
No cover charge; drinks priced standard for French Quarter bars
Access
Limited Access
1772 French Colonial townhouse with uneven brick floors, low doorways, and minimal lighting
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1772 · National Historic Landmark · French Colonial Architecture · LGBTQ+ Cultural History · Tennessee Williams Heritage
The building at the corner of Bourbon and St. Philip Streets was constructed between 1772 and 1791 in the French Colonial Louis XV idiom. The walls use briquette-entre-poteaux construction - soft Spanish-period bricks set between heavy cypress posts and beams - and the original double-pitched hipped roof remains in place. The structure survived both of the late-eighteenth-century French Quarter fires that destroyed much of the surrounding building stock. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970.
The building's name derives from a romantic association with the Lafitte brothers, Jean and Pierre, who operated the Barataria smuggling network in southern Louisiana in the early nineteenth century. Local tradition holds that the brothers used the building as a base for their New Orleans operations. The historical record does not support the association: Jean Lafitte was born in France around 1780, well after the property was built; Pierre Lafitte first arrived in New Orleans in 1803 as a refugee from the Haitian Revolution; and the property records for 941 Bourbon, which reach back to 1722, never include either Lafitte brother as owner or operator. The Lafitte name appears to have been attached to the building in the mid-twentieth century as bar branding.
The building has had multiple uses across its 250-year history. In the mid-1940s, Roger 'Tom' Caplinger renovated the long-abandoned ground floor and opened Cafe Lafitte. The bar quickly became a fixture in the bohemian and gay subcultures of postwar New Orleans, with regulars including Tennessee Williams and Noel Coward. Cafe Lafitte's later split into the current Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and the separate Cafe Lafitte in Exile a few blocks away on Bourbon Street. The Blacksmith Shop has operated continuously as a bar in its current configuration since the 1950s.
Sources
The bar's haunted reputation rests largely on the strength of its building and its association with the Lafitte legend. Patrons and staff have for decades reported a recurring figure in eighteenth-century dress observed near the central fireplace, often identified by tour guides as Jean Lafitte. The figure is most often described as bearded and dark-eyed; some accounts describe a pair of glowing red eyes observed from within the fireplace itself after closing hours.
Other regular reports include the smell of pipe tobacco in unoccupied corners, the sound of footsteps overhead when the upstairs is unoccupied, drinks moved or knocked over without contact, and figures observed in the windows from Bourbon Street after the bar has closed. The dim candlelit interior and the building's structural irregularities - sloping floors, uneven walls, and the deep shadows cast by the central fireplace - contribute to the atmospheric weight independent of any specific incident.
Ghost Adventures, the Travel Channel, and multiple French Quarter walking-tour operators have covered Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop as a haunted location. The bar itself does not actively program around the ghost stories. Visitors who order a drink and spend an evening at the back fireplace get the full effect of the building without needing the supernatural framing to make sense of why the place is unsettling.
Notable Entities
Order a drink at the candlelit bar of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, one of the oldest surviving structures used as a bar in the United States. The 1772 briquette-entre-poteaux walls and the open central fireplace define the interior; the bar's signature purple Voodoo Daiquiri is a frequent order. No food is served.
Multiple French Quarter walking-tour operators include Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop as a stop, both for its architectural significance and for the Lafitte brothers folklore associated with the building.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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