| Constructed sometime between 1727 and 1772, Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is a good example of a French Colonial Louis XV townhouse of briquete-entre-poteaux construction. It is one of the oldest buildings still standing in New Orleans. It's believed to have been occupied and probably built by pirate brothers Jean and Pierre Lafitte and that the blacksmith shop was, in reality, a front for their nefarious business enterprises. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. It houses a bar said to be the oldest continually occupied bar in the United States. It's a very popular tourist attraction and one of the most photographed buildings in the city, as well as, a favorite subject for artists, as in the sketch below featured on a 1940's postcard. You'll find no electric lights at all inside of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar, only candles are used to illuminate. All the better to catch a glimpse of the spirit of Jean Lafitte, who reportedly still oversees his ghostly pirate empire from the back room of the bar. A tourist once captured the ghostly image of a horse standing in front of the shop, head bent as if drinking from a trough. (Well, okay, it may have been the reflection of neighboring neon lights, but who am I to throw cold water on a good legend?) |
