Dancing at a Ball that Ended 200 Years Ago (early to mid-1800s)
The Bourbon Orleans Hotel is reportedly a ghost haven. Among the spirits roaming the halls, visitors find Confederate soldiers or ghosts of children from the building’s time as an orphanage. But one ghost is said to linger from the time of the Quadroon Ball, where racial boundaries were crossed for a grand night of dancing. Wealthy Creole men would dance and romance women with one-fourth African blood, called Quadroon, starting about 1819. The men, sometimes married, were seeking courtesans rather than wives, setting them up comfortably in nearby neighborhoods like Treme. The balls lasted until the space was used for government after the Capitol building was decimated by fire. According to local lore, the figure of a woman in a grand dress will dance her lonely chorus under the ballroom’s crystal chandelier. Others report movement and noises from behind the draperies, despite nobody being there and no windows being open.