Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop - New Orleans

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is located on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.  The building dates to around 1772 and is the city's oldest surviving briquette-entre-poteaux structure.  Legend has long been held that the shop was used as a hideout for Jean Lafitte and his gang of pirates.  Although no evidence exists to support this claim, there is a connection between the shop and Lafitte in the person of  Captain Renato Beluche.  Beluche was a know asssociate of the pirate, and he, or his family, seems to have owned the shop at some point in time.  The use of the building as a blacksmith shop is even more in question.  The shop was first turned into a bar in the early 1930's, known as Cafe Lafitte, and run by Roger "Tom" Caplinger.  Tennessee Williams was a favorate of the bar, which catered to the bohemian clientele of the city.  Caplinger ran the bar until 1952 when a title dispute forced him to sell and move his operation to the other end of Bourbon Street, where it still operates as Cafe Lafitte in Exile, and claims to be the oldest continuosly run gay bar in America.  The new owners renamed the site Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, the name under which it still operates today.  In 2003 the shop underwent renovations which restored it to its current look.  Lafitte's is considered one of the oldest structures in the city and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

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