A haunted jaunt through the Pelican State reveals hidden histories told through the lives of the deceased. Bring a flashlight—it gets dark.
Restless Spirits of Louisiana

The ghost of Father Antonio de Sedella—an 18th-century Spanish friar known as “Père Antoine”—may or may not haunt the alley beside the St. Louis Cathedral. If so, he’s got a short commute: Antoine is buried under the cathedral floor. He’s not alone, either.

Beneath the oldest continuously used cathedral in the United States lay the remains of 13 other high-ranking church officials, an unknown number of faithful New Orleans residents of yesteryear, and the building’s head engineer, who died one year before the church was completed. While the original 1727 structure burned down in a 1788 fire, the rebuilt Rococo cathedral has been meticulously maintained for centuries, boasting impressive stained-glass windows, neatly gilded altars, and eerily off-key bells at the top of every hour.

Today, the imposing, three-spired house of worship presides over Jackson Square, dominating the French Quarter’s landscape and offering daily masses, self-guided walking tours, and a welcome respite from the summer season's devilish heat. You can look for Père Antoine in the alleyway next to the church—it’s named in his honor, given how often he’s said to appear.

Before this Gothic-style castle housed the Louisiana Museum of Political History, it was the state’s capitol building starting in 1850. Even before that, the hill-top property belonged to the family of Sarah Morgan, whose likeness is believed to be the one slamming doors, triggering motion sensors, and pushing around security guards late at night.

With a history as sordid as this building’s though, there are a number of supernatural suspects. 

It could be one of the Confederate soldiers imprisoned here after Union forces commandeered the building in 1864; it could be the unidentified body removed from the property’s pond in the 1980s; or it could be Confederate General Henry Watkins Allen, who is buried on the property.

Still, the Old State Capitol did have some bright spots. While closed for repairs in the 1990s, local Louisiana State University students turned it into a clandestine party house, but the jury’s out on whether Sarah Morgan was a Tigers fan.

The Longleaf Pine is a slow-growing and resin-rich tree, making it both durable and saltwater-resistant. Thus, the forests of central Louisiana—rich in Longleaf—proved critical in the construction of Higgins boats, themselves deployed in the operations of D-Day and other tide-turning battles of World War II.

Unfortunately, the trees grew too slowly to sustain the company town of Long Leaf, whose population peaked at 500 in the 1940s. Nestled deep in the woods just south of Alexandria, the timber village established a post office, school system, and commissary store alongside the milling operation established in the 1890s. With regrowth too slow to uphold profits, the project ultimately folded. The mill shut down so abruptly on Valentine’s Day, 1969, that lunch pails still hang from lockers and work orders remain etched into chalkboards in the once-bustling sawmill.

The mill is now one of the oldest complete sawmills in the American South and preserved as part of the Southern Forest Heritage Museum. On a warm day, the corrugated steel roof expands and creaks, lending an eerie ambiance to an abandoned building already rife with sharp edges and rusted heavy machinery. Over the years, there have been varying accounts of disembodied voices, shadowy figures, and strange sounds coming from the saw mill. Of course, it may be pure speculation, but in an era that predated workplace safety standards, it’s quite likely that the mill caused injuries and even deaths of workers.

For a time, central Louisiana's lumber rush was so lucrative that it enticed at least one Yankee entrepreneur to get involved. Pennsylvania-born Joseph Bentley purchased a patch of pine forest around the turn of the 20th century, but it was a refusal of service that plunged the timber baron into a different industry altogether.

After being turned away from an upscale hotel in Alexandria for improper attire, the story goes, a spite-fueled Bentley built an even more elaborate and upscale hotel around the corner in 1907, sparing no expense in the effort. Limestone from the nearby Red River was fashioned into over 600 columns to provide structural support for the hotel’s 93 rooms and 11 banquet spaces. The 10,000 square feet of mosaic flooring throughout the lobby was made from imported Italian marble, each piece laid by hand over the course of two years. Of course, Bentley left room for a private elevator leading to his lavish personal residence on the top floor. 

The building was a triumph, eclipsing the cities' lesser luxury hotels, hosting entertainment legends like John Wayne and Roy Rogers, as well as President Eisenhower and General Patton during the Louisiana Maneuvers training period in the leadup to U.S. engagement in World War II.

The fact that Bentley died in the building in 1938 likely fueled tales of his apparition flitting between his former residence and the dimly lit basement bar and restaurant—both open to the public. Even without the haunting presence, the uncanny display of century-old ostentation does nothing to relieve the modern visitor of the heebie-jeebies. 

The well-heeled guests of the Bentley could have easily popped into C.A. Schnack's Jewelry Store, which sat just up the block. Opened in 1865 by Scottish immigrants, the business boomed with the heavy traffic flowing down the Red River. The elongated, high-ceilinged gallery was Alexandria’s premier outlet for fine jewelry until the business changed locations in 1931, leaving the ornate space abandoned for decades.

In the late 1990s, a local attorney partnered with the grandson of the building’s original builder to breathe new life into the space by opening a steak and seafood restaurant named, aptly, The Diamond Grill. 

The titular nod to the building’s early years failed, however, to sate one former jewelry store employee. The resident ghost whom staff named "Stella" occupies a second-story banquet space overlooking the dining area. She’s said to fuss over glassware and sundry shiny objects. 

Much as with the Bentley, the space itself is eerily transportive, between the candle-lit tables, art nouveau wall sconces, and total symmetry. Grab a seat at the mezzanine bar for an elevated, Cajun-flared dinner with a view. Wear jewelry if you want company.

The children of Zwolle, Louisiana, grow up hearing tales of the Crying Lady, a cloaked figure said to roam endlessly down the backroads around town late at night in a fit of inconsolable madness—her nocturnal wailing ringing through the forest. As for why, it depends who you ask.

Some stories claim her baby was kidnapped, that she’s screaming for help; others that her husband died in battle, and she screams in mourning. Whatever the reason, the legend bears a striking resemblance to the indigenous Mexican folktale of La Llorona, or “the Weeping Woman,” who (also depending who you ask) drowned her children in a blind rage after catching her husband in a state of infidelity. 

The thematic echo may be explained by the fact that Spanish colonizers occupied the region in the early 19th century shortly after departing from Mexico, potentially bringing La Llorona in tow.

The oldest cemetery in Shreveport offers a glimpse of the city's rugged beginnings and an enduring lesson in how not to bury your dead. To hear the Oakland Cemetery Preservation Society tell it, the Shreveport of the 1830s was “an exceedingly inhospitable place with a rough constituency of pioneers and little law enforcement.” As such, the cemetery first established in 1836 was, by 1847, at capacity.

While the city worked to build out a second, larger cemetery, a series of yellow fever epidemics ravaged the area. Then there was the Civil War. Then there were even more yellow fever epidemics. All of this came along with a decree from the city that each grave from the first cemetery be relocated to the second. With a daunting number of bodies to tend to, the city bungled the relocation, separating headstones from their corresponding coffins. It’s unknown how many gravestones are mismatched in what is now known as Oakland Cemetery.

Today, the preservation society estimates that there are as many unmarked graves in Oakland Cemetery as there are marked ones. A plaque for the “Yellow Fever Mound” marks the site of a mass grave containing over 750 residents who succumbed to one epidemic alone—though it’s really more of a hill. While the prospect of so many unmarked graves lends precarity to every step, the skyline views from this aggrieved cemetery are some of the best in the city.

Two Shreveport residents spending forevermore in Oakland Cemetery are Lafayette and Lavinia Logan, who spent their living days just a stone's throw away in a stately, three-story Queen Anne Victorian mansion built in 1897. As one of the last remaining homes of its kind in the city, the Logan is appropriately considered haunted—but not for its proximity to the cemetery.

The story goes that the childless Logan couple was regularly visited by a young girl who lived around the corner named Theodora Hunt. Neglected by her widowed father, Theodora and the Logans developed something of a familial bond, and the child all but moved into Logan Mansion. One day, it’s said, she was playing in the mansion’s third-story attic when she fell to her death from the window. Legend has it her ghost remains in the house where she felt most at home. The current owner—who runs a bed and breakfast out of the mansion in addition to hosting murder mystery nights—calls her a “playful spirit,” more likely to hide guests’ keys than torment them as an embittered adult ghost might.

When historic tours of this century-old auditorium became consistently interrupted by strange noises, guides began offering haunted tours for an increasingly interested clientele. Much like the Logan Mansion, “the Muni” abuts the sprawling Oakland Cemetery, though it too has a history all its own. 

The art-deco behemoth was opened in 1929 and dedicated to the soldiers of World War I (it would later serve as a barracks for troops preparing to enter WWII, as well). Aside from boxing matches, plays, and rallies, the palatial 3,000-seat auditorium came to host the Louisiana Hayride, a live music program that helped launch the careers of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, to name a few. 

While the legacy of its stars may linger, most of the ghost stories are attached to the building’s events. Think moans coming from a basement bathroom where a pregnant woman is said to have given birth during a concert, or the scent of baby powder emanating from the dressing room.