photo: CHELLE KOSTER WALTON
THE HISTORIC INTRIGUE OF GRETNA
Architectural Charm/Shotgun House, Gretna
by Chelle Koster Walton My food coma was real after the oyster
throwing cabbages, corned beef, and other
were on the Jefferson Parish Oyster Trail, after all) at
groceries off parade floats for spectators to make
landmark restaurant Gattuso’s in downtown Gretna.
into St. Paddy’s Day dinner (I’m not making this stuff
I had been traveling for eight hours by this time,
up!). And then there’s the sweet clutch of women
and I admit, the prospect of touring a handful of
who love to tell the stories that make history in
historical sites at the moment made my mouth go
Gretna a living thing. That surprise overcame my
dry and my eyes start to glaze.
skepticism, delighted my funny bone to the marrow,
That was until I discovered some of the secrets and stories this city tucks away, free of all that we’re-
and sunk deep into my heart. Tooling down Manhattan Boulevard or
so-historic pretense. Instead, I found a heartening
Westbank Expressway en route to Gretna from New
warmth and authenticity that slowly burned off my
Orleans on the other side of the Mississippi River, it
initial fog of inertia. Plus, some incredible tales.
feels like any other big-city suburbia. Then you take
What?! A blacksmith who performs weddings?
that turn, the turn that leaves behind the traffic, the
Liquor bottles found buried under the house of the
rat race, the present tense.
19th-century town teacher? Wait, there’s more: There was that one
Rumor has it that former and notoriously loved Louisiana governor Huey P. Long bribed the town
parishioner who rowed a church organ across the
to rename its main drag after him. Locals refer to it
Mississippi, then carried it on his back the rest of
as “Huey P.” It and parallel Lafayette Street cross the
the way to the magnificent St. Joseph Catholic
heart of Gretna’s Historic District, past majestic oaks,
Church. A former slave owner built the area’s first
puffy-blossomed crepe myrtles, frill-trimmed historic
desegregated burial ground and more than 30
homes, restaurants that attract metro day-trippers,
schools that shattered 19th-century race barriers.
grand churches, and other majestic vestiges of a
The stories went on: German immigrants 8
tricked into settling these parts; Italian-Americans
Rockefeller soup and firecracker oyster salad (we
www.VisitJeffersonParish.com
multi-cultural past that’s segueing into a bright future.
