Week Twenty-one
Biloxi and Gulfport, MS
Where
can you spend $1.99 for a breakfast buffet?
Where
can you spend $5 for a lunch buffet?
Where can you spend $12.95
for an All-you-can Eat Seafood buffet (including dungeonous crabs)?
Where can you have a lot of fun gambling with
pennies?
The answer to all these questions is at a casino on the beach in
Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi.
The casinos
aren’t the only forms of entertainment on the Gulf and we checked out several
others.
Historical
points of interest about Biloxi include:
·
First
capital of the Louisiana Purchase Territory
·
Seafood
Capital of the World (early 1900’s)
·
Home of the “shoofly”
belvedere (a structure designed to command a view)
Shoofly
The Jefferson Davis Presidential
Library was built on the grounds of Beauvoir, the retirement estate of Jefferson
Davis. Remember your Civil War facts --
Jefferson Davis was the only President of the Confederacy. Davis was a graduate of West Point and a
prominent Senator from Mississippi prior to the Civil War. It was interesting to learn that he was well
respected and were it not for the Civil War probably would have been a
contender for the Presidency of the United States. He spent his final years at Beauvoir writing his memoirs and
raising citrus and grapes on the property.
His widow and family maintained the house until the late 1800’s when it
became too expensive for them to maintain and sold the property to the Sons of
the Confederacy mandating that the house be used as a home for Confederate
Soldiers and their families. In the
early 1940’s, the house was restored and established as a museum. Over the years, the restoration continued
to include the entire property and today encompasses 51 acres of the original
estate. Today the property includes
massive live oaks that are over a hundred years old, antebellum outbuildings, a
Civil War museum, a historic cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and
nature trails. The Presidential Library
contains an extensive display of Civil War memorabilia as well as a documentary
movie about the life and philosophy of Jefferson Davis.
Main House – Beauvoir
Flag of the
Confederacy High Over Beauvoir View of the Gulf from the Front Porch of
Beauvoir
Beauvoir
Biloxi
Lighthouse
The Biloxi Lighthouse, built in 1948, is among the earliest cast iron
lighthouses built in the United States.
The lighthouse stands guard over the twenty-six miles of Gulf coastline. There were several female light keepers
and the beacon has shown continuously since 1848 except for a brief period
during the Civil War when the lens was hidden by the local home guard. The Biloxi light was electrified in 1926
and is currently maintained by the City of Biloxi as an historic site. It is reputed to be one of the most
photographed objects in the South.
The Gulf
beaches from Biloxi to Gulfport are man-made.
Every day you can see dozers and loaders moving and re-distributing sand
to maintain the beach area.
Maritime
& Seafood Industry Museum
– Established in 1986 to preserve and interpret the maritime history and
heritage of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, this museum is a great collection of
small craft, fishing equipment and artifacts.
There is also a great movie that runs continuously about Hurricane Camille. Camille hit the Mississippi coastline in
August of 1969 and is said to be the
worst storm ever to hit mainland United States. There is an
Admission Charge but on the last Wednesday of every month it’s free. This is a great museum dedicated to the sea
and the number one industry in Biloxi .
J.L. Scott
Aquarium – This aquarium
has several aquarium tanks that are examples of an ocean environment, a swamp
and a bayou. Some of the animals
include sea turtles, sharks, catfish, eels and alligators.
Biloxi was the
first opportunity we had to explore the snow-white beaches of the Gulf and to
walk in the surf. This 26-mile (give
or take a couple miles) stretch of beach is man-made. Sand is dredged from between the mainland and the barrier
islands and deposited on the beach.
Each day sand dozers and sand rakes groom the beaches to keep them clean
and liter-free. The barrier islands
that protect Biloxi are part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.
TRIVIA QUESTION: Who was The Rhinestone Cowboy?
ANSWER: Glenn Campbell
Several of you
are probably thinking what a strange question to ask. . .but we went to see
Glenn Campbell at the Grand Casino. He
sang all of his old favorites and was very entertaining -- poking fun at himself for his old drinking
habits and reminisces about his acting debut in True Grit with John Wayne. We has a short video that plays as part of
the show where he is the Lone Ranger riding across the prairie. He plays the song on the guitar holding it
over his head (SEE the picture below).
We celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary while in
Mississippi and enjoyed a great seafood buffet at the casino before the
show. Dungeness crab was the highlight
of Ron’s feast – all you can eat!
Pickin’ to the Lone Ranger Theme (Ron knows it as the
William Tell Overture!)