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February 18, 2024

[St. Louis 1] is the mother cemetery … the Vieux Carré of the dead; as confused and closely packed a quarter as the living metropolis…
Grace King, 1895
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Welcome to NOLA Dead Space

This website is based on research and recent (~2001) tomb and site preservation work at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, Louisiana done by the Architectural Conservation Laboratory and Research Center of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania.

The website was initially developed by them in 2001 but subsequently redesigned, developed, and built by Red Tooth & Claw using their research, data, and information. This is currently a work in progress as we add content as well as building a directory of tombs including all internments (or in the least memorializations), which will all be searchable and accessible via an interactive map. Please check back.

4 Levels of Information

Each level presents multiple pages of information under five topics – History, Maps, Site Thru Time, The Project and Resources. Enjoy,and feel free to contact us with new ideas, corrections or additional information.

Just for Fun! Project headlines, key findings and fun activities

Take a Tour through the information with maps and images

More Information includes detailed articles providing greater depth

Data & Docs includes downloadable documents and project source files.

Vistors can search for specific tombs or people interred within, or at least memorialized on, tombs within the cemetery. Internments are accurate until 1981.

Guide to then Cemetery

Just a few things to keep in mind as you explore the tombs

“Memorialized?”

lists of entombments, ie bodies, are labeled as “memorialized” as we do not know if they have been moved or even put inside at all

“Blank”?

Some tombs are missing faceplates or just do not have any names listed, there may be people entombed within but maybe not. in some cases they may say “empty”; that just means “blank” as I have not yet gotten to change the listing

Navigation

Tombs have an address listed with pound symbol (“#”) and number followed by a “street name”—that is the tomb number plus paths in the cemetery. St Louis Cemetery Number 1 truly is a “city of the dead” closely representing old New Orleans as there sometimes is no rhyme or reason to the layout (or, as also in the case of New Orleans, where “urban planning” is a contradiction of terms). Maps are provided for your convenience.

Images

Many photographs are old and my no longer represent the current situation of tombs. many pictures and tombs date to 1981 and so may currently be ruins or replaced by new tombs. New Tombs as of 2001 are documented.