Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 has occupied this block since 1833, the Garden District's answer to the French Quarter's St. Louis cemeteries — a walled city of the dead holding the remains of the American settlers who built the Garden District around it. The cemetery was established by the city of Lafayette, which was then an independent municipality upriver from New Orleans and which was populated by the American merchants and planters who moved here after the Louisiana Purchase. It was annexed by New Orleans in 1852.
The above-ground tombs here are generally more elaborate than those in the older Creole cemeteries: the wealth of the Garden District is reflected in the marble monuments, classical pediments, and ornate ironwork that mark the family tombs of the cotton brokers, sugar merchants, and attorneys who built the surrounding mansions. The cemetery suffered devastating losses during the yellow fever epidemics that swept New Orleans repeatedly through the nineteenth century; entire rows of tombs were built in single terrible seasons when the fever killed hundreds every day. The twin alleys of live oaks that run through the cemetery from the main entrance create one of the most atmospheric urban spaces in the South.
Anne Rice, who grew up in the Irish Channel adjacent to the Garden District and whose Vampire Chronicles are deeply rooted in New Orleans geography, was buried here in 2021.