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Biloxi Lighthouse |
The Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum is a wonderful place to begin your exploration of Biloxi and the Gulf Coast.
The Nydia, a beautiful schooner, is featured prominently.
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Nydia |
The exhibits provide a lot of history about boat building, local maritime heritage, fishing, shrimping and wonderful examples of this seafood processing center.
Since we are in the South, we decided to visit Beauvoir, the last home of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy.
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Beauvoir |
Jefferson Davis came to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1877 looking for a place to write his memoirs. He visited a family friend, Sarah Dorsey, at Beauvoir. Davis rented one of her cottages where he wrote his monumental memoir The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
In addition to the home, there is also the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, historical cottages, gardens, Oyster Bayou and a Confederate Veterans Cemetery. The property was used as a Confederate home from 1903-1957.
If you have read many of my previous posts, you will know that I enjoy architecture. We learned that a very prominent architect had lived and built 2 homes in nearby Ocean Springs, so we planned to take a tour!
The Charnley-Norwood House was built by Louis Sullivan. Sullivan was on vacation in the area and loved it so much that he purchased some waterfront property and designed two retreats, one for him and one for James Charnley, a friend from Chicago. Sullivan designed these retreats to blend into the natural surroundings with the assistance of one of his draftsmen, a young Frank Lloyd Wright! Sadly, Sullivan’s house was destroyed in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast; however, the Charnley-Norwood house was restored. This is a must-see gem!
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Mississippi Gulf Coast |
