SEE BACK; IX-NO-23; Shotgun houses, built by the thousands in 19th century New Orleans, have a special charm with their 12 to 14 foot ceilings, and Victorian embellishments (known as Carpenter-Gothic gingerbread). They are three or more rooms long and one room wide, which explains their name -- a shotgun could be fired from the front door, and the buckshot would travel through every room in the house before exiting out the back door. These inexpensive, mass-produced workers' homes were packed together on lots a third or a fourth the size of lots used for conventional housing, allowing developers to sell or rent that many more units on a given amount of land. Please credit LOUISIANA OFFICE OF TOURISM
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Columbia University Department of Art History and Archaeology Photograph Collection, digitized with support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation