Mississippi - Day 5 - beach towns and bridges

Santa Maria RV Resort, Gautier
Sunday, 5 January 2020

today's route

Before leaving the campground, I stopped in an unpopulated area of the park to walk the dogs.  The campsites had a great view of the ocean just across the road, but the park people charged almost double for the campsites, and this time of year nobody seemed interested.  But it was a nice place to walk, and I saw a flock of Bluebirds and a large flock of swallows - both nice to see.

Not far down the road I saw a pelican diving into the Gulf - fishing for its breakfast.  I think I'm seeing both Brown Pelicans and White Pelicans along the MS Gulf coast.

Bay St. Louis

100 Men Hall D.B.A.

I drove into an old part of town looking for a building called the 100 Men Hall D.B.A.  I'm used to seeing DBA in lowercase letters, intending to stand for "doing business as," but that's not what it means here.  Here it's an abbreviation for the full name Debating Benevolent Association.  Though as far as I can tell, the members didn't do any debating but instead focused on the benevolent part.  And despite the "100 men" bit, it started in 1922 with 10 men - all African Americans - putting together a group that would mostly help their neighbors pay for burials (which there were probably a lot of, given that this was heavy Jim Crow and KKK territory and era).  But it evolved, as so often happens, into a forum for groups and gatherings of all kinds, and then into a venue for Blues musicians on what was called the Chitlin' Circuit.  Which it still is.  A venue for Blues music, I mean.  Musicians such as Ray Charles, Etta James and James Brown played here over the years.  The building doesn't look like much, but apparently it's got a heart and soul.

I couldn't get any closer than this because of that elevated railroad track you see in the photo.  Bay St. Louis seems to specialize in them - most of the tracks in town have warning signs of high track clearance with little drawings of the tracks scraping on vehicles' undersides.  I went over most of them okay, but the lead-up to this one looked too steep for me to want to risk it.  I'm guessing there's another route, but I'd already gotten lost once and didn't want to keep hunting around for it.

Bay St. Louis is known in some circles (though not mine) as the location for filming the 1966 movie This Property is Condemned with Natalie Wood and Robert Redford.  I've never seen it but with talent like that, I think I should.

I saw a historical marker for The Battle of Bay St. Louis and thought it sounded a little weird.  And I guess it was, based on the account on the website at this link.   www.hancockcountyhistoricalsociety/battle-of-the-bay-of-saint-louis  But the bottom line is that without this battle, Andrew Jackson may well have been unsuccessful at the Battle of New Orleans, which could have changed the course of US history.  Odd how things happen.

While I was wandering around town, I saw a sign for the local Mardi Gras Museum, but I was still hunting for the 100 Men Hall and didn't want to stop.  Another time, though, because it's in a historic 1928 train depot that's been restored to 1928 beauty, which is actually saying something.  Apparently, Mardi Gras is seriously celebrated here.

Speaking of that, I stopped in a local grocery store for provisions, and the first thing I saw when I walked in the store was an enormous display of King Cakes for Mardi Gras.  But Mardi Gras isn't until February 25th, which is still 6+ weeks away, so I'm starting to think Mardi Gras is celebrated around here like Halloween and Christmas and other holidays: start as early as possible.

This grocery store definitely knew it was in Cajun country (I understand French Creole is the largest ethnic group in this county), based on the brands and foods I saw here.  Big Easy Foods® Breaded Boudin Balls, Crawfish Cornbread Casserole, Shrimp Creole Crawfish Estouffée.  Mam Papaul's® mixes (e.g. for breading catfish).  Zatarain's® crabboil seasoning.  Old Bay® seasoning.  Cast nets (see example below).  Interesting reflection of the community.

cast net usage

Continuing along the Gulf road
I passed the Armed Forces Retirement Home - except for the occasional hurricane, this is a nice place to situate it.

I passed Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis's home, and noticed that they'd built a very fancy new building since Momma and I had come through.  I still didn't want to stop, but I imagine they've done a fancier job of displaying their exhibits than what we saw a few years back.

In Biloxi I passed the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art, not named for Georgia O'Keeffe but instead for Annette O'Keefe, wife of the mayor, and for George Ohr, The Mad Potter of Biloxi.  It's an odd-looking building, as you might expect for an art museum, but I can't show you because I couldn't find any non-copyrighted photos online.

As I think I mentioned the other day, the Biloxi Lighthouse, built in 1948, is the only lighthouse in the country that stand in the middle of a highway.  This internet photo's proof:

Historic Biloxi Lighthouse

I'm not sure if it's operational - it's now owned by the City of Biloxi - but it made it through Katrina and Camille and a bunch more hurricanes, despite being made of cast iron, which I'd think would have trouble in this climate.  It is odd, though, to be driving down this highway and find a lighthouse in the middle of the road.

Twice I passed men carrying a US flag while jogging down the highway, and the 2nd time I saw a car nearby with a sign that said something about a charity walk for some cause - but they should have made their sign clearer, because the speed limit was too fast for most folks (including me) to read it.

Gulf Islands National Seashore
This is the largest national seashore in the US, stretching for 160 miles along a slew of islands in the waters of both Mississippi and Florida.  In MS, the park includes 5 barrier islands and a bayou.  I spent a little time at the Visitor Center and learned a few things about this part of the Gulf coast.

make-up of a barrier island

the 5 islands of the MS part of the national seashore

this diagram shows how the islands are shifting from east to west, partly natural erosion, partly hurricane results

Cat Island was named by the French who thought indigenous raccoons were cats, Europe not having any raccoons until the 1900s.  Oddly, it was used during WWII as a training center for dogs used in the war.

West Ship Island (now a separate land body from East Ship Island) is the site of Ft. Massachusetts, begun before the Civil War but not finished until 1866.  Despite the incomplete fort, the island was used by both sides - the Confederates for defense, the Union for launching raids on Gulf coast cities.  Ship Island was later used as the first US quarantine island.

Ellis Island of the South

Horn Island has examples of every habitat the park offers, all on one island.

Petit Bois (French for little woods) is pronounced here as "petty boy."

These islands are all designated wilderness area, except a part of Cat Island which is still privately owned.

Also part of the National Seashore is Davis Bayou.  Sadly, the Visitor Center's handout had huge information gaps, and for Davis Bayou all it gave was a map.  I tried to take notes during the film they showed, but I didn't write all the information it gave about the importance of the bayou.  Even more inexplicable, there's no information on their website, and search engines seem to think it's important only because there's a campground there.  But my impression was that the bayou provides habitat and protection for a wide variety of species of plants and animals important to the whole ecosystem.  Seems to me it's taken for granted.  Here's all I've got from their exhibits.

As you can see at left, cordgrass anchors the bayou lands, just as the sea oats hold the sand dunes together on the barrier islands.  Without this vegetation, these areas would apparently be nothing but water.  80% of the park is underwater, as it is.

A wide variety of animals call this area home.  The Mississippi Sound has one of the world's largest populations of Bottlenose Dolphins, for instance.

There are Fiddler Crabs and Ghost Crabs.  Loggerhead turtles lay their eggs on these barrier islands (only 1 out of 1,000 lives to adulthood - a staggering fact).  Alligators have made a comeback from their formerly endangered status and live happily in this area.  There are cottonmouth snakes and armadillos.


















So altogether, I'm glad I stopped in here.  But it seems to me the National Park Service relies far too heavily on the attractiveness of taking boats out to uninhabited islands and virtually ignores the nursery area of the bayou.  But, I guess as long as it's protected . . . .