These four little homes on the North Side are examples of a type of housing that has mostly disappeared in this area: shotgun houses.
Built in 1921, the smaller two (on the left) are 590 square feet; the larger two are 620 square feet.
The term “shotgun” has nothing to do with the Second Amendment or weddings. Rather, because the front and back doors of a shotgun house are aligned along the same side of the house, if a shotgun were fired through the front door—don’t try this at home—the pellets would cleanly exit through the back door. Shotgun houses were popularized in New Orleans and found mostly in the South. They are usually no wider than twelve feet on a lot no wider than thirty feet, typically have no hallway, just a living room, one or two bedrooms, and a kitchen.
Shotgun trivia: Elvis was born in a shotgun house (1935). Robert “Crossroads” Johnson died in one (1938). John Mellencamp wrote the song “Little Pink Houses” after seeing an old man waving from the porch of his pink shotgun house.
