Front Street

The historic brick-paved street along Cane River Lake in Louisiana's oldest permanent settlement, lined with shops, restaurants, and galleries in buildings dating to the 1700s and 1800s.

Front Street is the historic heart of Natchitoches, the oldest permanent settlement within the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, founded in 1714 as Fort St. Jean Baptiste by French-Canadian explorer Louis Juchereau de Saint-Denis. The brick-paved thoroughfare runs along the banks of Cane River Lake, lined with centuries-old buildings whose wrought iron balconies, storefronts, and French colonial architecture have witnessed more than three hundred years of history. The street is now part of a National Historic Landmark District encompassing thirty-three blocks and more than fifty landmarks.

The most frequently reported paranormal phenomenon on Front Street is the ghost of a Confederate soldier. During the Red River Campaign of 1864, Union General Nathaniel Banks marched his forces through Natchitoches on the way to Shreveport, with troops occupying the town by late March before engaging Confederate forces under Major General Richard Taylor at the Battle of Mansfield on April 8. The fighting and subsequent retreat left casualties on both sides throughout the region. Shop owners along Front Street report that the spectral soldier appears on any given day, staring through sidewalk windows at the businesses within. Multiple proprietors have described the encounters as a freaky experience that none of them can get used to, despite the frequency with which the apparition makes its rounds along the old brick street.

The most documented haunting on Front Street centered on Plantation Treasures, a shop housed in a building constructed by the Hughes family in the early 1900s. Owner Tina Rachal described in a 2013 interview how the spirit of a young girl, believed to be the Hughes family's daughter who died under unclear circumstances, terrorized the store. The ghost would throw items from the shelves and pull people's hair. Staff learned that the spirit demanded to be acknowledged each morning. If employees failed to greet her when they arrived, she would throw what Rachal described as a temper tantrum, sending merchandise crashing to the floor. The daily ritual of saying hello became standard practice for anyone opening the shop. Rachal eventually had the building exorcised after a particularly frightening encounter, and reported that the disturbances ceased afterward.

The hauntings on Front Street are not limited to these two spirits. The centuries-old buildings along the riverfront have served as homes, businesses, military quarters, and gathering places through French colonial rule, Spanish governance, the antebellum era, Civil War occupation, and into the modern day. With each generation, new stories emerge of unexplained footsteps in upper-floor apartments, cold spots in doorways, and the sense of being watched by unseen eyes from the shadowed balconies overhead. Natchitoches embraces its spectral heritage alongside its living history, and Front Street remains the stage where both converge.