Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop: The Pirate's Speakeasy

Why is it significant?

Step onto the creaking threshold of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop at the quiet end of Bourbon Street and look at the exposed brick and timber walls.

Key Facts

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Step onto the creaking threshold of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop at the quiet end of Bourbon Street and look at the exposed brick and timber walls. Known in French as briquette-entre-poteaux—brick between timber posts—this rustic cottage was constructed between seventeen twenty-two and seventeen thirty-two, making it widely recognized as the oldest surviving building structure operating as a bar in the United States.

The tavern is named after legendary privateer and pirate Jean Lafitte and his brother Pierre. During the early nineteenth century, the brothers operated a blacksmith shop here as a clever front to fence smuggled goods, gunpowder, and contraband slaves plundered from Spanish galleons in the Gulf of Mexico.

When British troops threatened to conquer New Orleans in eighteen fourteen, General Andrew Jackson struck a secret deal with Lafitte: in exchange for full pardons, Lafitte's pirates supplied seven thousand pounds of vital gunpowder and flint to Jackson's army, securing decisive American victory.

Lit only by flickering candles at night, patrons often whisper of sightings of Lafitte's ghostly figure lingering beside the fireplace. Walk north toward St. Ann Street.