A visual chronicle of the shotgun shack, a truly American architectural icon

A southern solution for efficient urban housing

A brick shotgun house with “camelback” addition built in the 1930s. Louisville, Kentucky, 1980s. (HABS/Library of Congress)

In cities, housing needs are the biggest driver of architectural innovation (see California for its bungalows, the Northeast for its row houses). Local climate and available materials are often as important in determining regional residential solutions as space and population, and the shotgun houses common in the South—especially Louisiana—are a prime example.

Though variations are common, generally a shotgun house is defined as a raised, single-story rectangular home with a narrow frontage—typically less than 12 feet wide—and no hallway. Tall-ceilinged rooms open onto one another from front to back, allowing for maximum ventilation in a hot, humid climate. Modest and efficient, shotgun houses were constructed as inexpensive accommodation for laborers clustered in neighborhoods like New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. By the 20th century the diminutive dwellings had come to dominate NoLa’s working class residential landscape.

Shotgun house in Bywater, New Orleans. June, 2005. (Alexey Sergeev)

The precise origins of the shotgun house are up for debate. Some scholars trace the style back to West Africa, where an early 19th century boom in New Orleans’ Afro-Haitian population introduced the distinctive structures. But the ubiquity of shotgun houses throughout the urban south can also be viewed as a variation on the typical one-room farm house—rotated 90 degrees for a better fit in the city’s narrow lots.

The “shotgun” in shotgun house is thought to refer to their petite, linear nature: one could fire a weapon through the front door and hit a target standing in the backyard.

While there is some renewed interest in the shotgun house as a green and affordable option for affluent city dwellers, its heyday ended almost a century ago when widespread car ownership sent workers to the suburbs and air conditioning made cross breezes and open doors less vital. Today many of the shotgun houses still standing are in disrepair—quiet reminders of a time when cities were perhaps a little more hospitable to their working class denizens.

A row of shotgun houses beside a railroad track in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1973. (Steve Perille/UNC Charlotte)

(L) Shotgun house damaged by Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans, 2006. (Alexey Sergeev) / (R) John Eckert House, Madison, Indiana. Built in 1872. (HABS/Library of Congress)

“Double-barrel” shotgun row houses in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress)

Shotgun weatherboard house built in 1925. Person County, North Carolina, 1939. (Dorothea Lange/Library of Congress)

Shotgun house with extension. Palestine, Texas, 1991. (hardy Moore/University of North Texas Libraries)

Shotgun style rental houses built in 1912. Sumpter County, Georgia. (HABS/Library of Congress)

1421 East 3rd Street, Austin, Texas. (University of North Texas)

(L) Damaged shotgun house in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, 2006. (Alexey Sergeev) / (R) Norwood-Williams House, constructed in the 1930s. Columbus, Mississippi. (HABS/Library of Congress)

Shotgun house in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, 2006. (Alexey Sergeev)

(L) Rear view of a shotgun style house in Louisville, Kentucky. / (R) A partially demolished shotgun in Louisville, 1980s. (HABS/Library of Congress)

A resident of Louisville’s Phoenix Hill Historic District peers through his front door at a photographer, 1980s. This shotgun style house was constructed in 1882. (HABS/Library of Congress)