This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

COAST CHRONICLES
Coast farms once included turtle stock
• ..
hen turtle soup was all the rage, South Mississippi provided tons of the main ingredient The soup, particularly trendy during Victorian times, was served in the best hotels in New York, Wash-ington, D.C., and along the Eastern Seaboard.
Coast entrepreneurs profited from at least three turtle farms between the 1890s and early 1900s. The unusual livestock was diamondback ter-rar:'> a turtle found in the rivers and ir. brackish and salt marshes from
By Kat Bergeron
Massachusetts to Mexico.
Its abundance made the diamond-back a prime target for cultivation, and Coast promoters touted the homespun variety as a true rival of the Baltimore terrapin of world fame.
“Gulf Coast terrapins seem to be in demand amongst the connoisseurs of the world, who know what delicacies are,” The Daily Herald, then the Coast’s largest newspaper, boasted in 1902.
The turtle still roams South Mississippi, though like much wildlife it is not in the abundance of earlier times. One reporter for the Chicago Record-Herald, who was visiting the Coast in 1912, seemed amused by their great m >rs:
_iamondback terrapin, selling today on the markets in New York and Chicago for $5 each, are to be had practically for the asking along the (Mississippi) Gulf Coast, if one has the hardihood to bare his arm to the shoulder and reach into a hole in the mud where the terrapin is enjoying his winter siesta.
“Of course, there is always the chance that the terrapin will wake up and take a nip at the intruding hand, but that is one of the fortunes of war. If you beat him to it and drag him out of his retreat, you have the chief ingredient for the finest soup known to epicures.”
He’s not so big
when Americans discarded their penchant for turtle soup. Today, with a more environmentally aware public, it is about as popular as whale steak.
At the peak of its popularity in 1902, a Washington, D.C., official studying the vanishing terrapin admitted, "It cannot be denied that the celebrated Maryland diamondback terrapin is fast disappearing and will soon be extinct unless the government intervenes and rescues it from extermination.
“It might surprise you to leam that much of the terrapin that is sold in this dty comes from Biloxi.”
The Baltimore connection
Irony punctuated Biloxi’s move into the turtle domain of Baltimore.
In the 1880s Biloxi studied the techniques that made Baltimore the Seafood Capital of the World, used those techniques for shrimp and oysters and eventually claimed the title for itself. Now Biloxi found itself competing with Baltimore in the turtle business.
Coast turtle farms on Back Bay and Deer Island maintained herds of 5,000 to 14,000. An Eastern-bound order for 2,500 was not unusual.
The diamondbacks were collected from this region by fishermen, turtle-trained dogs and hunters who delivered hundreds at a time.
One of the best accounts of a Coast
memoirs, Andrews recalled:
“The terrapin pen was built on Back Bay just west of Lameuse Street and going down almost to Reynoir Street. The pen went out in the water about 50 feet. They used slabs and rough-boards from the saw mill.
“I remember distinctly how the logs that they had put on the place would get green with algae and I’d slip on those big oak logs in the sand when I was little, landing in the turtles, and they never did bite me, but (my relatives) were always afraid one would.
“At the time it was the only seafood cnat you could ship and it would reach New York in live state. They had to send them over to Louisiana and they were graded into several grades: They had the heifer and the bull and the count.
“Well, the count was the largest prime one. You can imagine how valuable they were back in those days when you could buy a whole hundred pounds of sugar for a dollar. Those counts would bring as high as $5 a piece. ”
Ernest Desporte, another Biloxian who witnessed the turtle craze, recorded in his memoirs that hunters received $1 for counts, 25 cents for heifers and 5 cents for bulls.
Going to the market
The farmers raised some turtles through breeding, although most were brought in already on their way to adulthood, or full-grown. They were fed a gourmet diet of chopped oysters.
Once the proper size, they were sold to restaurants for as much as $35 a dozen, a tidy profit.
On market day, the farmers punched breathing holes into large, empty sugar barrels and stacked live diamondbacks inside, one on top of another. Sometimes wet Spanish moss was stuffed between them for coolness during their long train ride to
Make A S Financial Si
vif-’r-J.* nJif.ffe? ;vw
New 1994 Lincoln
Now There Are Two / To Lease The Lincoi
4.6-liter V-8 engine
Sequential multi-port electronic fuel injection Dual air bags
Four-wheel disc anti-lock brakes Six-way power driver and passenger seats Remote illuminated keyless entry system CFC-free electronic automatic air conditioning Rear four-bar link suspension with air springs Leather seating Full size spare tire
Electronic 4-speed automatic transmission Power windows/locks Electronic AM/FM stereo cassette I ilt wheel Spted control
All Maintenance Incluc JUST GAS & GO
7,	-"J.vi..	Tj’-v.
BUBfi?
rtf -f