page_title: Shotgun house
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Shotgun house / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Shotgun shacks in the Third Ward
context_page_description: A shotgun house is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than about 12 feet wide, with rooms arranged one behind the other and doors at each end of the house. It was the most popular style of house in the Southern United States from the end of the American Civil War through the 1920s. Alternate names include shotgun shack, shotgun hut, shotgun cottage, and in the case of a multihome dwelling, shotgun apartment; the design is similar to that of railroad apartments.
  A longstanding theory is that the style can be traced from Africa to Haitian influences on house design in New Orleans, but the houses can be found as far away as Key West and Ybor City in Florida, and Texas, and as far north as Chicago, Illinois. Though initially as popular with the middle class as with the poor, the shotgun house became a symbol of poverty in the mid-20th century. Urban renewal has led to the destruction of many shotgun houses; however, in areas affected by gentrification, historic preservation efforts have led to the renovation of such houses.
context_section_description: The origins of both the term and the architectural form and development of the shotgun house are controversial, even more so in the wake of conflicting preservation and redevelopment efforts since Hurricane Katrina.
   
  New Orleans architectural historian Samuel Wilson, Jr. influentially suggested that shotgun-style houses originated in the Creole suburbs (faubourgs) of New Orleans in the early 1800s. He also stated that the term "shotgun" is a reference to the idea that if all the doors are opened, a shotgun blast fired into the house from the front doorway will fly cleanly to the other end and out at the back.
  Alternatively, folklorist and professor John Michael Vlach has suggested that the origin of the building style and the name itself may trace back to Haiti and Africa during the 18th century and earlier. Vlach claimed the name may have originated from a Dahomey Fon area term 'to-gun', which means "place of assembly". The description, probably used in New Orleans by Afro-Haitian slaves, may have been misunderstood and reinterpreted as "shotgun". Citing Vlach, James Deetz claimed archaeological support for an African origin in his dig at Parting Ways, a 1790s community of freed black slaves in Plymouth, Massachusetts; his shotgun interpretation of the extremely limited evidence – two rooms that "may or may not have been unified" – has been challenged as "premature".
  Vlach's theory behind the earlier African origin is tied to the history of New Orleans. In 1803 there were 1,355 free blacks in the city. By 1810 blacks outnumbered whites 10,500 to 4,500. This caused a housing boom. As many of both the builders and inhabitants were Africans by way of Haiti, Vlach maintained it was only natural they modeled the new homes after ones they left behind in their homeland. Many surviving Haitian dwellings of the period, including about 15 percent of the housing stock of Port-au-Prince, resemble the single shotgun houses of New Orleans.
  The shotgun house was popularized in New Orleans, and, as Fred Kniffen documented in a statewide survey of Louisiana house types in the 1930s, the greatest number are  found dispersed from there in a manner that supports the diffusion theory. The style was definitely built there by 1832, though there is evidence that houses sold in the 1830s were built 15 to 20 years earlier.
  A simpler theory is that they are the typical one-room-deep floor plan popular in the rural south, rotated to accommodate narrow city lots.
  Such houses were built throughout hot urban areas in the South, since the style's length and outside doors at each end allowed for excellent airflow, while its narrow frontage increased the number of lots that could be fitted along a street. It was used so frequently that some southern cities estimate that, even today, 10% or more of their housing stock is composed of shotgun houses.
  The earliest known use of "shotgun house" as a name for these dwellings is in a classified advertisement in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 30, 1903: "Two 3-room houses near the railroad yards at Simpson st. crossing, rent $12 a month to good tenants who pay in advance; price $1,200 on terms or $100 cash, balance $15 a month; a combination of investment and savings bank: these are not shacks, but good shot-gun houses in good repair." While this advertisement seems to present shotgun houses as a desirable working-class housing alternative, by 1929 a Tennessee court noted that shotgun houses could not be rented to any other than a very poor class of tenants.  After the Great Depression few shotgun houses were built, and existing ones went into decline. By the late 20th century shotgun houses in some areas were being restored as housing and for other uses.
  Shotgun houses were often initially built as rental properties, located near manufacturing centers or railroad hubs, to provide housing for workers. Owners of factories frequently built the houses to rent specifically to employees, usually for a few dollars a month. However, by the late 20th century shotguns were often owner-occupied. For example, 85%
caption: The portion of the Third Ward of Houston, Texas north of Truxillo has many shotgun shacks
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