Above the Waterline

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Walk through St. Louis Cemetery Number One and you'll see something unique: the dead aren't buried in the ground, but in towering above-ground vaults. This isn't just a cultural quirk; it's a necessity.

Opened in 1789, the cemetery had to adapt to the city's high water table and porous soil, which made traditional burials nearly impossible. If you tried to bury a casket deep in the New Orleans earth, the water would likely push it right back up. These stone vaults are the city's architectural answer to a landscape that refuses to hold onto anything.

It's a hauntingly beautiful solution to a permanent environmental problem.

Updated June 2026