LaLaurie Mansion

About this audio guide

This guide to the LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans begins with rescuers climbing into the attic above you on April 10, 1834, after a fire deliberately set inside the house. It follows what they found there, documented in detail by a judge who wrote down every wound by hand, and the testimony of a seventy-year-old enslaved woman chained to the kitchen stove below, who judged the fire a better risk than staying. You'll hear how neighbors broke down a locked door when the LaLauries refused to hand over a key, and how word of what was inside moved through the French Quarter within two days. Listen for how much of what stands today is original, and how much was rebuilt afterward.