History Behind the New Orleans Shotgun House

We’ve defined what a shotgun home is in a different post, but what’s the history behind these unique homes? When were they built and why were they used in the south so much?

Shotgun homes became popular in the 1860s after the civil war was over. They were built through about the 1920s and many today have been restored. However, the origination of the term and the architectural style have been debated, especially after Hurricane Katrina with all the redevelopment efforts.

Samuel Wilson, Jr. believed the shotgun home came from the Creole suburbs of New Orleans back in the early 1800s. He believes the term “shotgun” was used because you could open all of the doors on the inside and outside and fire a shotgun through the house without causing any damage.

However, John Michael Vlach suggested that the building style may have roots in Africa and Haiti. He believes it dates back to before the 18th century and the name may come from the term “to-gun”, which is Dahomey Fon for “Place of Assembly”. He also suggested that the term and style came from Afro-Haitian slaves in New Orleans and was misunderstood, which led to the use of shotgun instead of to-gun.

While the shotgun home may date back further than some suggest, it wasn’t truly popularized until the 1930s. However, there is evidence that many of these homes were sold in the 1830s and some were built at least 15 years sooner.

Why the Shotgun Style?

There are many theories as to the reason for choosing the shotgun style of home. Of course, the smaller size made these homes cheaper to build, but many believe they also provides better airflow, which mattered in the hot southern areas of the country. In addition, city lots were very narrow and the style was used to fit the lot. The narrow frontage made it easier to fit more homes on a city street and even today 10% or more of the homes in some areas of New Orleans are shotgun style homes.

Built as Rental Properties

Initially, these shotgun homes were built as rental properties near manufacturing businesses or railroad hubs. They were used for hosing the workers and factory owners often built these homes to rent them out to employees for a few dollars a month.

However, by the late 20th century, many of these homes had become owner-occupied. In fact, about 85% of the shotgun homes in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans were owner-occupied by the late 20th century.

These homes were also very popular before automobiles became a normal thing for most people to own. They allowed workers to live closer to the city and closer to where they worked. The high demand came from a large number of immigrant workers moving to the United States for manufacturing jobs. Shotgun homes were built to fill the same type of need as the row houses built in the northern cities before the popularization of automobiles.