One of the most unusual aspects of Saint Louis #1 is the so-called oven vaults that line its perimeter. These niches can be reused after a year and a day. The extreme heat and humidity in New Orleans reduces a corpse placed inside to bones within the span of a year, after which time a second coffin can be pushed inside. The back of the vault opens into a chamber called a caveau, where the bones of everyone buried in that niche reside, jumbled together.
The most famous resident of Saint Louis #1 may or may not be Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen. The Glapion tomb is inscribed (in French): "Here lies Marie Philome Glapion, deceased June 11, 1897, aged 62 years. She was a good mother, a good friend, and regretted by all who knew her." The death date of 1897 is not the famous Marie's, but closer to her daughter Marie's.
