The following is a list of people executed by the U.S. state of Louisiana before 1972, when capital punishment was briefly abolished by the Supreme Court's ruling in Furman v. Georgia. For people executed by Louisiana after the restoration of capital punishment by the Supreme Court's ruling in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), see List of people executed in Louisiana.
On June 19, 1910, governor Jared Y. Sanders passed Act No. 61, House Bill No. 24, ordering that all executions were to take place at the state prison in Baton Rouge. Hugh Connerly was the first person to be hanged at the state prison under this new law. The law was repealed in 1918, the last of the 35 hangings at Baton Rouge being that of Jim Bell and Preston Miles, and executions returned to local settings until 1957 (see Electrocution).
On June 24, 1940, the Louisiana Legislature voted 80-7 to pass a law officially replacing hanging with electrocution, and electrocution was officially adopted on August 6, 1941. Rather than establishing a single execution chamber, the state's electric chair, known as "Gruesome Gertie", was moved as needed to parishes where the condemned had been sentenced. In 1956, another law was passed which centralized executions at the state penitentiary, and the electric chair was subsequently installed in a newly built execution chamber on May 21, 1957.
Two executions would take place under martial authority in Louisiana during this time: Pvt. Walter J. Bohn, a 27-year-old white man, was hanged on August 6, 1943 at Camp Claiborne in Rapides Parish for the rape of Esther E. Ruttkay, and Pvt. Clarence D. Gibson, a 25-year-old black man, was shot on September 18, 1945, at Lake Charles Army Airfield in Calcasieu Parish for the murder of Pvt. Ralph S. Heimbach, a 22-year-old white military policeman.