The most popular house in American south was the shotgun house; this was during the period from just after the Civil War until the 1920s. New Orleans developed the style but we could find it up to the ways of the Chicago and California. It is characterized in a very peculiar way that it has a narrow rectangular structure looking appearance which usually is not more than 12 feet (3.5 m) wide. It contains three to five rooms deep, all connected to each other with no hallways, with doors at each end. The term "shotgun" is usually said to come from the saying that one could fire a shotgun through the front door and the pellets would fly cleanly through the house and out the back door.