Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and Bourbon Street Heritage
Why is it significant?
Conclude your historical journey through the French Quarter before the weathered brick and timber facade of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop at the corner of Bourbon and St. Philip Streets.
Key Facts
| Place | Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and Bourbon Street Heritage |
|---|---|
| Address | 941 Bourbon St, New Orleans, LA 70116, United States |
| Geo Coordinates | 29.96100, -90.06600 |
| Part of Walk | French Quarter, Creole Townhouses and Mississippi Riverfront: The Heart of New Orleans |
| Generated | Generated |
Conclude your historical journey through the French Quarter before the weathered brick and timber facade of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop at the corner of Bourbon and St. Philip Streets. Constructed between 1772 and 1780, this dimly lit, atmospheric building is officially one of the oldest surviving structures in New Orleans and widely believed to be the oldest continuously operating bar in the United States.
The building is constructed in the primitive briquette-entre-poteaux style, where soft colonial red bricks are mortared between heavy hand-hewn cypress timber posts, plastered over with soft oyster-shell lime. Because the building survived both the catastrophic fires of 1788 and 1794, its crumbling plaster reveals the authentic eighteenth-century construction techniques of early French and Spanish New Orleans.
Popular legend maintains that privateers Jean and Pierre Lafitte operated an innocent-looking blacksmith and wagon repair shop here in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a clever front for their lucrative smuggling empire. From their secluded island stronghold in Barataria Bay, the Lafitte brothers sailed privateering sloops that captured Spanish and English merchant vessels, smuggling contraband textiles, jewels, spices, and enslaved laborers into New Orleans through the back door of this unassuming brick shop. Inside today, the tavern remains illuminated almost entirely by candlelight, with no electric lighting in the main bar, where travelers gather around an ancient brick piano to sing ballads and sip signature frozen Voodoo cocktails.
Standing before these ancient timbers as the gas lamps flicker on Bourbon Street and piano chords drift into the humid evening air, you feel the intoxicating spirit of New Orleans wash over you. Here, piracy, revolution, jazz, and hospitality meet in timeless Creole celebration.
Linger by the piano by candlelight or explore the illuminated courtyards of the historic French Quarter.