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Mississippi Timeline 1917-2017

By Kat Bergeron

Special to the Sun Herald

UPDATED MARCH 31, 2017 6:52 PM

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No one newspaper article, indeed no timeline such as this, could tell the entire
story of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This one, compiled from new and previous
research, highlights the Mississippi Coast’s second century under statehood from
1917 to 2017.

We make no claim to include every history-shaping event but these items give an
idea of the vastness with which change came to the Coast.
These events appeared in the pages of The Sun Herald and its earlier form, The
Daily Herald. This newspaper was first published in 1884 and its microfilm
remains one of the best documentations of Coast development.

1917

On April 2, the day President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress for a declaration of
war against Germany, workers at Mississippi Centennial Exposition site in
Gulfport patriotically raise 50 flags. The U.S. enters World War I on April 6, and
the expo site becomes a Navy training station.

1918

Cajuns continue to be lured from Louisiana to work the seafood factories, which
depend on seasonal “Bohemian” laborers now staying in the East to work World
War I armament factories. Biloxi’s George E. Ohr, the self-styled “Greatest Art
Potter in the World” dies of probable lung cancer.

1919

Mississippi is the first state to ratify Prohibition. The Coast does a booming rum-
running business on the water and whiskey stills inland. Gulfport gets its first
cargo ship of imported bananas.

1923

Construction begins on a Coast Guard base on Back Bay to police the rampant
rum-runners, who use the Sound, islands, bays and railroads as entry points to the
U.S.

1924

Seawall construction begins in coastal counties and Harrison County’s “world’s

longest concrete seawall” takes four years. Mississippi Power Co. is born out of the
old Gulfport and Mississippi Coast Traction Co., which operated a small generating
plant and beachfront trolley.
1925

Highway 90 along the beach becomes U.S. 90, part of a national highway system
from Florida to San Diego (all are part of the Old Spanish Trail, a tourism ploy
envisioned a decade earlier).

1926

The Isle of Caprice (the renamed Dog Island about 12 miles offshore with a history
of disappearing and reappearing), opens as a gambling, drinking and recreation
resort to thwart mainland laws, but the Great Depression and erosion close its
doors after five years.

1927

This magnificent year for grand hotels brings the likes of the Pine Hills,
Edgewater Gulf, the Tivoli and enlarged Buena Vista and White House hotels.

1928

Radio arrives on the Coast in the form of WGCM. Seawalls in three coastal
counties are completed.

1929

The first Coast blessings of the fleet is held in August in Biloxi and D’Iberville, a
result of the strong Catholic influence of the Slavonian and Cajuns, now the
seafood industry backbone. The Great Depression (starts Oct. 29) brings an end to
real estate and tourism booms, and businesses and big hotels go bankrupt as the
“Gold Coast” (also called the “American Riviera”) loses its shine.

1930

Bridges finally span every river and bay between New Orleans and Mobile,
making possible for the first time ferryless travel between the two cities.

1931
The tung industry, a monopoly in China for centuries, takes hold in South
Mississippi’s cut-over lands (tung is an important ingredient in paint and
furniture finish).

1932

With lumber and wool exports dwindling, the Port of Gulfport must look for other
products, and it discovers bananas in a bigger way, although the banana-savvy
New Orleans port fights to maintain its banana role.

1932

The last race of the White-Winged Queens, the Biloxi fishing schooners, indicates
sails are out and diesel-powered luggers are in.

1933

The national repeal of Prohibition adds to the Coast’s depression misery by ending
its national standing as an illegal liquor supplier, but black-market liquor trade
remains for 33 more years until it becomes legal on the Coast.

1934

Recognition that the Coast is an important military site grows. A Coast Guard base
opens at the southeastern tip of Point Cadet, complete with a ramp and hangar for
seaplanes. (After WWII, it is given to the city for recreational use.)

1935

The sheep industry, so lucrative in the first two decades when 5 million roamed
the piney woods, fizzles with the passage of open stock laws.

1937

President Franklin D. Roosevelt visits for the second time. (Earlier, his cousin
Teddy was a favorite visitor to the Coast, as were later the Trumans.)

1938
Robert Ingersol Ingalls, lured to Pascagoula by balance-agriculture-with- industry
funds, opens on a World War I shipyard site. The Dantzler Moss Point Mill, the
Coast’s largest, saws its last log, indicating the death of a Coastwide industry, but
the pulp mill continues as International Paper Co.

1939

Ocean Springs holds its first 1699 Iberville landing re-enactment, a sporadic event
that will become an annual event 32 years later.

1941

In June, the first cadre of officers and men set up tents on the grounds that will
become Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi; soon 12,000 construction workers are
busy. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 and the U.S. entry into WWII,
the tung, shipbuilding, paper and other Coast industries switch strategies to supply
war goods.

1942

The Navy picks a 1,150-acre site in Gulfport for the military engineers known as
Seabees. Another military site opens, Gulfport Field, an Army Air Corps base.
Merchant marines are being trained in Pass Christian.

1943

Ed Barq, who started a soft drink company in Biloxi in the 1890s, dies and leaves
behind a national root beer legacy.

1945

Big government rivals seafood, tourism and forestry as economic factors. Many of
the Coast’s war-born installations and industries remain intact after the war as the
U.S. embraces the concept of peacetime military preparedness.

1946

The Army Corps of Engineers finishes the 1,166-mile Intracoastal Waterway six
miles offshore in the Mississippi Sound; communities begin cutting channels and
canals to it, which creates an industrial revolution in oil, space, engineering,
fabrication and chemicals.

1947

A September hurricane kills 20, demolishes waterfronts and teaches new

generations about destruction. New shrimp “bottoms” are found in water south of
the barrier islands, which gives a dwindling industry new life.

1950

The Coast population reaches 127,365 (11,891 in Hancock, 84,073 in Harrison,

31,401 in Jackson). The Gulf Coast Research Lab opens in Ocean Springs.

1951

Simultaneous construction of the 300-foot sloping beach to replace eroded sand

and the widening of the old U.S. 90 (to become America’s first four-lane, coast-to-
coast military superhighway) helps Uncle Sam, but also gives Coast tourism a huge
boost. Historically wide-open but illegal Coast gambling is forced to go
underground after the anti-crime investigating committee of Sen. Estes Kefauver
exposes it to the nation.

1952

700 lots for a new Gulfport neighborhood called Bayou View is carved from the
World War II-era Gulfport Field. Wartime airport is upgraded for community use.

1953

Ground is broken for Memorial Hospital at Gulfport.

1954

National Guard training facillity at the Gulfport airport is completed.

1955-56
The postwar tourism boom sprouts many tourist cottages and nightclubs that draw
national names. Elvis Presley does Coast concerts and woos Biloxi girlfriend.

1957

Lee Koplin, a Florida genius of roadside pop art, builds a miniature golf course in
Biloxi with its trademark dinosaur.

1958

Joe Brown, owner of the Horseshoe Club in Las Vegas, buys the vintage
Broadwater Beach Hotel, which his wife later turns into the Coast’s flagship hotel.

1959

In October, Biloxi physician Gilbert Mason challenges segregation laws by

petitioning the county for unrestricted sand beach access, until then denied by
beachfront homeowners. (Two protest wade-ins and court suits follow before
beaches are desegregated.) Ingalls launches the USS Blueback, its first submarine,
a diesel electric.

1960

Harrison County voters approve a bond issue to construct the Harrison County
Waterway, and dredges cut more waterways and feeder canals to the Intracoastal
Waterway in other counties.

1961

Out of 30 candidates, Hancock County is selected as the site for NASA’s largest
moon-rocket test facility because the rockets can be built in New Orleans, tested
at what is now Stennis Space Center and shipped to Cape Canaveral by the
Intracoastal Waterway.

1962

WLOX-TV, with studios in Biloxi’s Buena Vista Hotel, hits the airwaves. Mary
Mahoney opens the Old French House Restaurant. Black-market taxes paid to
state, sheriffs and others on liquor make some salaries higher than the U.S.
president’s.

1963

The Coast’s first regional shopping center, Edgewater Mall, opens in September
midway between Gulfport and Biloxi (on 40 acres later annexed by Biloxi).
Smaller shopping centers appear across the Coast.

1964

In August, Mississippi’s first black child enters a previously all-white school in

Biloxi.

1965

Hurricane Betsy gives a glancing blow. The widening of U.S. 49 to four lanes
begins. Construction of Interstate 10 begins. Mississippi Gulf Coast Community
College admits its first black students and divides into three campuses. Famous
Jackson County artist Walter I. Anderson dies of lung cancer, leaving behind a
fabulous collection of art.

1966

For the first time Coast blacks and whites sitat the same large music venue when
Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is concert comes to town. The co-mingling is
repeated at an appearance of James Brown.

1969

On Aug. 17, Hurricane Camille, the strongest 20th-century storm to hit the U.S.,
kills at least 132 on the Coast, leaves about 40 missing, causes $6.8 billion in
damage, and proves the human spirit can rebuild. Commuter train travel to New
Orleans ends after nearly a century, and in four years all Coast passenger-train
service ends.

1970
The seafood industry gets a boost from hurricane-induced, low-interest
government loans; that, coupled with larger boats and new technology, makes
shrimping a year-round business but causes overfishing of waters.

1971

Crowds cheer when the first blast fails to bring down the Roaring ’20s-era
Edgewater Gulf Hotel for a mall expansion.

1972

The University of Southern Mississippi buys the 1920s-era campus of Gulf Park
College for Women and turns it into a regional campus.

1973

Harrison County voters reject $6 million bond issue for new courthouse. (Fire two
years later creates necessity.)

1974

Contracts signed for building the $16 million U.S. Naval Retirement Home in
Gulfport.

1975

I-10 in Harrison and Hancock counties is completed, but the Jackson County part
is held up for seven years because of environmental issues concerning sandhill
cranes. Biloxi, Pascagoula and Gulfport join the 1,200 cities that grab at urban
renewal funds to revitalize fading downtowns. For Biloxi, it’s the $22 million
Vieux Marche project.

1976

The Mississippi Audubon Society initiates a “Nest in Peace” on the beach to help
the endangered least tern. William Carey College buys the former Gulf Coast
Military Academy in Gulfport to offer four degrees offered by the parent
Hattiesburg campus.
1977

Gulf Islands National Seashore Park opens in Ocean Springs and on several
barrier islands. The Mississippi Coast Coliseum & Convention Center opens to
Charley Pride instead of Elvis Presley, the scheduled performer, who had just died.
The 17-county Biloxi Diocese is carved out of the Natchez Diocese and headed by
the first U.S. black diocesan bishop. The old tree-lined Pass Road in Biloxi and
Gulfport is widened to four lanes to create a commercial corridor.

1978

Vietnamese refugees, who come in larger numbers because the fishing resembles
that in South Vietnam and because of a Catholic resettlement program, help
supply seafood workers to declining factories, but some American fishermen
resent them. Former President Richard Nixon is warmly received, despite the rest
of the country’s attitude toward him, because the Coast remembers his Camille-
rebuilding help.

1979

DuPont dedicates its DeLisle plant to manufacture titanium dioxide. With a lot of
volunteerism and private-public bucks to lure it, the Miss USA pageant is staged at
the Coast Coliseum this year and for the next three years.

1980

More than 4,000 gather on the beach in front of Edgewater Mall holding signs
reading “Thanks Canada” in response to that country’s help with Americans held
hostage in Iran.

1981

The Coast’s last all-black school, North Gulfport Elementary, becomes part of
another integrated school. The national financial recession begins on the Coast,
worsened by the Louisiana oil bust.

1982
Singing River Mall opens. A fire at the Biloxi jail kills 29, and an Illinois drifter
accused of setting it will be acquitted.

1984

The commuter train temporarily returns to take Coast people to the New Orleans
World’s Fair. J.L. Scott Marine Education Center & Aquarium opens in Biloxi. The
100-year-old The Daily Herald and 11-year-old The Sun merge to create The Sun
Herald. Harrison County Sheriff Leroy Hobbs is sentenced to 20 years after
pleading guilty to racketeering charges involving a cocaine ring.

1985

After several attempted hits that cause false evacuations, Hurricane Elena’s 110-
mph winds buffet Jackson County and cause $352 million in damage. The Navy
announces Pascagoula will become a home port. The renaissance of Old Town in
Bay St. Louis begins.

1986

Shrimpers are required to use the catch-reducing turtle excluder devices. Seafood
packers, facing depleted local fishing, realize it’s better to “join than fight ‘em,”
and begin big-time processing of imported seafood. The rum-running-era Coast
Guard base at Biloxi’s Point Cadet becomes the Seafood Industry Museum. Gautier
becomes a city.

1987

Harrison County begins its project to replenish the eroded sand beach, and sand
dunes are encouraged with the planting of sea grasses. The murders of Judge
Vincent Sherry and wife Margaret in Biloxi are linked to the Dixie Mafia on the
Coast, and Pete Halat, who will become mayor, is eventually jailed as a murder
conspirator.

1988

D’Iberville becomes a city, thus thwarting Biloxi’s annexation efforts. Interstate

110 and the loop open.
1989

The first of the replica old Biloxi schooners, named after banker Glenn L.
Swetman, sails. Larkin Smith, the Coast’s promising shining star in Congress, dies
in a plane crash.

1990

Voters approve dockside gambling in Hancock County, but defeat it in Harrison

and Jackson counties.

1991

The Walter Anderson Museum of Art opens in Ocean Springs.

1992

57.4 percent of Harrison County voters approve dockside gambling. In August, the
riverboat Isle of Capri is the first casino to open. In September, Casino Magic
opens in the Bay.

1993

Gulfport annexes North Gulfport and Orange Grove, stealing the title of the state’s
second-largest city from Biloxi. The U.S. 49 corridor begins phenomenal retail
growth.

1994

The George E. Ohr Arts & Cultural Center opens in the hometown of the “Mad
Potter.”

1995

Sen. John C. Stennis, influential Pascagoula native and “father” of the space center
and much other Coast growth, dies. Keesler and the Seabee bases survive
congressional military base closings and grow bigger.

1996
The Coast loses its weather icon, Harrison County Civil Defense Director Wade
Guice, whose compassion and expertise is credited with saving lives in Camille
and later storms. Trent Lott of Pascagoula is elected to the powerful seat of U.S.
Senate majority leader.

1997

Biloxi casinos generate 35 percent of Mississippi’s $2.2 billion gross gaming

revenues. A building boom to house the Coast population explosion is underway.
The urban renewal canopies are torn down to once again try to revitalize
downtown Biloxi. Gulfport also undergoes rejuvenation.

1998

Hurricane Georges strikes Sept. 28, killing none on the Coast but causing $310
million in damage. The symbolic Biloxi Lighthouse celebrates 150 years. Jet
service, taken away in the recession, is restored in October. The Jefferson Davis
Presidential Library opens at Beauvoir in Biloxi.

1999

The tricentennial becomes a Coastwide, year-long 300th birthday party. The

opening of Beau Rivage in Biloxi brings Coast casinos, now numbering 11, to a
classier level. Arguments continue but nothing definite comes out of the need for
a north-south and east-west road to hold the new traffic. Twenty-one Mardi Gras
parades now roll across the Coast.

2000

The New Millennium begins with an official three-county Coast population at

350,000 people, 700 times the number at the beginning of the century. (But
estimates by public developers believe the number could well be 800 times.)
Black Springbreak comes to the Coast for the first time. The big daddy of
gambling, MGM Grand, buys Beau Rivage in Biloxi, and Northrop Grumman
proposes to buy Litton Industries, which owns Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula.

2001
After Sept. 11, security tightens around USS Cole, docked for repairs at Ingalls;
National Guard begins security details at Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport;
several local families mourn loss of loved ones in New York and Washington.

2002

U.S. Sen. Trent Lott of Pascagoula resigns as Senate majority leader after being
accused of racially insensitive remarks at 100th birthday for Sen. Strom
Thurmond. Community debates appropriateness of Confederate battle flag in
public historic flag displays. Tropical Storm Isidore floods more than 3,000 homes
in Hancock County.

2003

Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Therrel Shane Childers, a 1990 graduate of Harrison Central
High, is one of the first American combat casualties in Iraq. Biloxi debates
whether high-rise developments will make Keesler vulnerable in the next round
of base closings. Pascagoula opens $50 million high-rise bridge.

2004

A Sept. 14 evacuation for Hurricane Ivan sends thousands northbound, clogging

roads, quadrupling the time of trips and causing many to question wisdom of
evacuating. Jackson County approves $7.1 million incentives for a Northrop
Grumman drone helicopter facility. Rare Christmas snow.

2005

In late August Hurricane Katrina, America’s worst natural disaster, devastates

entire coastline, does extensive damage inland, kills over 200 and causes most
Coast cities and tens of thousands of home owners to go back to the drawing
boards.

2006

Seventeen Marine Life dolphins, assumed lost in Katrina, are rescued. Federal
investigation into Harrison County jail death of Jessie Lee Williams Jr., shows he
was beaten without justification; four former corrections officers plead guilty and
the one accused of delivering blows remains behind bars. Former President
Carter and wife come to the Coast to build Habitat for Humanity homes.

2007

The $266 million Bay St. Louis Bridge and the $338 million Biloxi Bay Bridge
reopen. South Mississippi legislators coax fellow lawmakers to vote for bailout of
state wind pool because of rising homeowner-insurance rates. Work begins again
on Frank Gehry-designed Ohr museum in Biloxi.

2008

Gulfport bans indoor smoking in public places. Public greets with scepticism a
proposal for a petroleum reserve in Richton salt dome. Recovery from Katrina is
slowed by a nationwide recession and major construction is postponed. Gustav
rattles nerves but only causes some flooding as heads to Texas.

2009

Tourism, retail, real estate suffer from the worldwide economic slowdown.
Elections bring new mayors in Pascagoula, Gautier, Moss Point, Gulfport,
D’Iberville, Bay St. Louis. Repairs of U.S. 90 are completed. Federally funded city
and county construction to replace Katrina-destroyed buildings and infrastructure
begins in earnest.

2010

The Louisiana BP oil spill of April 20 fouls local beaches, swamps and islands,
causing massive cleanup, hurts seafood and spawns lawsuits. PBS “Antique Roads
Show” comes to the Coast Coliseum. The Ohr-O’Keefe Musuem returns to its rebuilt
beachfront campus. The image of the Biloxi Lighthouse, reopened for the first time
since Katrina, now graces state car tags. Ground is broken for the $23 million
Santa Maria del Mar apartment complex off Popp’s Ferry.

2011

Hotel Markham, built in the Roaring ’20s as a Gulfport apartment hotel, is listed
among Mississippi’s top endangered historic sites The Salvation Army’s $16
million, Ray and Joan Kroc Center opens. Golden Nugget announces it will
acquire the Isle Casino Biloxi.

2012

Hard Rock Casino begins construction on a $32.5 million, 12-story hotel. Nearly 90
Coast WWII veterans take Honor Flight to Washington, D.C.

2013

Department of Marine Resources officials indicted on federal charges.

Investigation into a shooting at the Narcotics Task Force of Jackson County
snowballs into indictment of Sheriff Mike Byrd. Tourism goes regional with
creation of Mississippi Gulf Coast Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau. The
long-closed White House Hotel and White Pillars restaurant in Biloxi are being
restored. University of Southern Mississippi reopens Gulf Coast campus in Long
Beach.

2014

The Biloxi Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum re-opens on Point Cadet.

2015

Scarlet Pearl opens as D’Iberville’s first casino. Biloxi’s longest serving mayor, A.J.
Holloway, steps down for health reasons and Andrew “FoFo” Gillich is elected.
Capt. Louis Skrmetta announces Gulf Islands National Seashore has renewed Pan
Isles’ contract to ferry passengers to Ship Island 10 more years.

2016

In May, Stone County celebrates its centennial. In December gas prices inch back
to $2 a gallon. Coast tradition of Christmas boat parades continued in Biloxi,
Gulfport and Long Beach.

2017

Guflport approves first construction contract for $64.5 million Mississippi

Aquarium. Pass Christian Historical Society continues its Tour Of Homes tradition
begun in 1977. The Mississippi Gulf Coast Spring Pilgrimage plans its 65th year. By
March the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Nursing and Simulation
Complex nears completion near the William Carey University at Tradition.

Compiled by Kat Bergeron

This story was originally published March 30, 2017, 4:07 PM.

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MARCH 31, 2017 2:53 PM MARCH 29, 2017 12:00 AM

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