Haunted Houses & Ghost Tours in New Orleans, LA

The history

New Orleans' haunted reputation rests first on a documented catastrophe: disease. Legends of America records that yellow fever epidemics raged in the city through the 1800s, peaking in 1853 with 7,849 deaths, and that some 41,000 people died of yellow fever in the city across the 19th and early 20th centuries. During the worst outbreaks, the site recounts, corpse wagons circled the neighbourhoods and mass graves lined the city's perimeter — the kind of documented history that sits underneath nearly every ghost story told in the French Quarter today.

The Quarter's most infamous address has a documented core, too. Marie Delphine Macarty — later Madame Delphine LaLaurie — was born on March 19, 1787, to a wealthy New Orleans family, according to Ghost City Tours' researched account of her life. In 1831 she purchased the lots at Royal and Hospital (now Governor Nichols) Streets that became the LaLaurie house. On April 10, 1834, a fire broke out in the home. Ghost City Tours, drawing on early reports and eyewitness accounts, records that seven enslaved people were rescued from deplorable conditions, "their bodies covered with scars and loaded with chains," and carried to safety at the Cabildo, while an outraged crowd destroyed the furnishings inside. LaLaurie escaped the mob by carriage. Legends of America places the mansion at 1140 Royal Street and notes it is a private residence today, visible only from the street.

Other anchors of the city's haunted map are equally concrete. Legends of America records that Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, lived on the site of 1020 St. Ann Street between 1839 and 1895. And at 4800 Canal Street stands a house built in 1872 that became a full-service funeral home by the 1930s, operated as one until Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and was converted into a haunted house in 2007 — a building whose documented working life needs no embellishment.

The legend

Folklore, clearly labelled: tour guides and storytellers say the LaLaurie Mansion is one of the most haunted places in the city, and Ghost City Tours itself cautions that with this legend "the line between fact and fiction has faded." The more sensational versions — mutilations and experiments in the attic — grew in the retelling; Ghost City Tours notes that reports of what was found vary sharply by source, and that even the tamest contemporary depictions are appalling. What is legend should be read as legend. What is documented — enslaved people found chained and scarred in a burning house — is grim enough on its own.

Local legend also holds that Marie Laveau's spirit still conducts ceremonies at her St. Ann Street home site, as Legends of America tells it. That, too, is folklore: a story the city tells about its most famous Voodoo practitioner, not a documented event.

A gentler legend attaches to the Hotel Monteleone. The documented spine, per Legends of America: Sicilian-born Antonio Monteleone arrived in New Orleans in about 1880, opened a cobbler shop, and in 1886 bought a 64-room hotel at Royal and Iberville Streets. The folklore laid over it: guests have reported the footsteps and laughter of Maurice Begere, a toddler who, the story goes, fell gravely ill and died at the hotel in the late 1800s while his parents were out, and whose pranks are now reported on the 14th floor. Reported) Streets was where, on April 10, 1834, a fire exposed enslaved people kept in chains, and where Delphine LaLaurie fled an angry crowd by carriage. Guides retelling that story today are working from a real, dated, documented event — and the better accounts, including Ghost City Tours' own, are candid that embellishments have piled onto it over nearly two centuries.

The legend layer is presented as exactly that on this page: local legend holds that the mansion remains haunted, and storytellers say LaLaurie's is the name that still draws crowds to Royal Street. The documented history, the company itself suggests, is the draw — its site calls its tours "mildly theatrical, hugely historical." Tickets and the current schedule are on the company's own website, linked from its Hountix listing.

Practical note: the company's own site lists the French Quarter tour at two hours and from $30; confirm current pricing there before visiting.

Haunted today

Hountix lists 18 places in New Orleans, LA. Seasonal attractions keep their own open dates, so check each business's own site before you go.

• Bloody Mary's Tours Haunted Museum & Voodoo Shop — ghost tour, 828 N Rampart St, New Orleans, LA 70116
• Bourbon Orleans Hotel — haunted place, 717 Orleans St, New Orleans, LA 70116
• Dark Tales and Haunted Trails of the French Quarter Walking Tour — ghost tour, 700 Chartres St, New Orleans, LA 70116
• French Quarter Phantoms Ghost Tours New Orleans — ghost tour, 718 N Rampart St, New Orleans, LA 70116
• Gardette-LePretre House (The Sultan's House) — haunted place, 716 Dauphine St, New Orleans, LA
• Ghost & Spirits Tour - Official Site — ghost tour, 400 Toulouse St, New Orleans, LA 70130
• Ghost City Tours in New Orleans — ghost tour, 809 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70116
• Haunted AF Tours — ghost tour, 721 Bourbon St, New Orleans, LA 70116
• New Orleans Ghost Adventures Tours — ghost tour, 620 Decatur St, New Orleans, LA 70130
• New Orleans Nightmare Haunted House — haunted house, 319 Butterworth St, New Orleans, LA 70121
• Nightly Spirits - Ghost Tours & Pub Crawls — ghost tour, 410 Dauphine St, New Orleans, LA 70112
• Nola Ghost Riders — ghost tour, 1140 Decatur St, New Orleans, LA 70116
• St. Germain House — haunted place, 1041 Royal St, New Orleans, LA
• St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 — haunted place, 425 Basin St, New Orleans, LA 70112
• The Mortuary — haunted place, 4800 Canal St, New Orleans, LA 70119
• The Mortuary Haunted House — haunted house, 4800 Canal St, New Orleans, LA 70119
• Witches Brew Tours — ghost tour, 311 Exchange Pl, New Orleans, LA 70130
• Yellow Fever Ghost Tours — ghost tour, 701 Canal St, New Orleans, LA 70130

The Mortuary Haunted House

The Mortuary does not need a fictional backstory: its building is the story. Legends of America documents the property's real timeline — built as a home in 1872, converted into a full-service funeral home by the 1930s, operated as a funeral home until Hurricane Katrina in 2005, left unkept after the flood, and converted into a haunted house in 2007. It stands at 4800 Canal Street, adjacent to the city's cemeteries — the "cemetery-adjacent property," as Legends of America puts it.

That documented history is what separates The Mortuary from a warehouse haunt. For roughly seven decades of the 20th century, the building did the city's most solemn work; its working life ended not by choice but by the same storm that reshaped New Orleans itself. The haunted house that opened in the mansion two years after Katrina is, by the record, a staged attraction — actors, sets and scares — operating inside a building whose real past visitors can verify.

Any ghost claims attached to the address belong to folklore, and this page presents them that way: Legends of America includes the property in its haunted New Orleans survey, but the documented facts are the 1872 build, the funeral-home decades, the 2005 closure and the 2007 conversion. Nothing more is asserted here.

domain themortuary.net appeared in search results, but which domain is Season dates are likewise unconfirmed; most New Orleans haunts run a fall season, but no dates are stated here until the business's own site confirms them.*

Bloody Mary's Tours, Haunted Museum & Voodoo Shop

Bloody Mary's is a woman-owned, family-run New Orleans operation, by its own site's account, built around a Haunted Museum & Spirit Shop at 826 & 828 N Rampart Street. The company presents the museum itself as a 200-year-old haunted house, and markets what it calls the country's longest-running public ghost hunts — that superlative is the business's own claim, and it is attributed here rather than asserted. Its tours are by reservation only, small-group, and blend walking and van travel; its site describes experiences designed by Bloody Mary herself, a self-described 10th-generation Creole, rooted in what she calls the cultural, historical and artistic reality of the city.

The investigations are the listing's centre of gravity. A tour-listing description of her paranormal investigations points to two venues: the Rampart Street Haunted Museum — described there as the Rampart Street Murder House — and the historic St. Ann Street home of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau. The Laveau connection has a documented anchor: Legends of America records that Marie Laveau lived on the site of 1020 St. Ann Street between 1839 and 1895.

The folklore layer stays labelled: local legend holds that Laveau's spirit still conducts ceremonies at the St. Ann Street site, and Bloody Mary's own site invites visitors to examine the "spirit evidence" it says it encounters on and off site. Those are claims made by believers and by the business — reported here as claims, not as findings. What is documented is the museum, the address, the Laveau history, and a tour company that has built its name on investigating both. Tickets and reservations are through the company's own website.

Sources

• Ghost City Tours, "Madame Delphine LaLaurie — The True Story" (LaLaurie biography, 1831 purchase, April 10 1834 fire, rescue accounts, fact-vs-embellishment caution) — https://ghostcitytours.com/new-orleans/madame-lalaurie/
• Legends of America, "Haunted New Orleans, Louisiana" (yellow fever tolls, LaLaurie Mansion at 1140 Royal Street, Marie Laveau house at 1020 St. Ann Street, The Mortuary timeline and 4800 Canal Street address — all fetched) — https://www.legendsofamerica.com/haunted-new-orleans/
• Haunted History Tours, official site (original-company claim, since 1995, tour range, 2-hour French Quarter tour from $30, year-round except Mardi Gras — fetched) — http://www.hauntedhistorytours.com/
• Bloody Mary's Tours, official site (Rampart Street museum address as printed on the site, ghost hunts, reservation-only small groups, woman-owned family-run — fetched) — https://www.bloodymarystours.com/