Calcasieu Parish Courthouse

The Calcasieu Parish Courthouse in Lake Charles is a brick and terra-cotta building completed in 1912 to replace the courthouse destroyed by fire in 1910, designed by Favrot and Livaudais of New Orleans in a Palladian style under a copper dome. Toni Jo Henry, convicted of killing a man in a plot to free her husband from jail, was executed there on November 28, 1942, in the basement with a portable electric chair, the only woman ever executed in Louisiana's electric chair. Courthouse employees still blame her for what goes wrong: mortgage department worker Trent Gremillion told KPLC that anything missing or misplaced is an automatic blame on Toni Jo, and employee Jamie Roy said the department's front door locks on its own. Louisiana's state tourism site also reports jail officers describing electrical malfunctions, the smell of burnt hair and perfume, and screams on the stairs. The courthouse is a working government building, and staff tell the stories with a dark sense of humor.