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BAY ST. LOUIS
CREOLE TRADITIONS AND COMMUTERS’ COTTAGES
City: 21 alt., 3,724 pop.
Railroad Station: Union St. for Louisville & Nashville.
Bus Station:	Ulman Ave. for Teche-Greyhound, at Gulf filling
station.	'v
Taxis: 25c up.	r
Traffic Regulations:	15	m.p.h.
Accommodations:	Two hotels, boarding houses, tourist camps.
Motion Picture House:	One.
Swimming: Reed Hotel pool (for guests only).
Tennis:	St. Stanislaus College, S. Beach Blvd.
Fishing:	Boats	for hire on Beach Blvd., bet. Main and Carroll Sts.
Annual Events:	Negro	Mardi Gras, Feb. or March; Spring Pag-
eant, March; Children’s Day, Shrine of Our Lady of the Woods, St. Joseph’s Academy, last Sun., May; Midsummer Fair; Homecoming Day, St. Stanislaus College, 1st Sun., Nov.
Bay St. Louis, on the headland above the Bay of St. Louis, with the Italian Renaissance towers of the Catholic church outlined against the low skyline, is essentially Creole in the original meaning of the word. Three thousand of its population worship at the Roman Catholic church; and many of these people trace their ancestry from the French and Spanish settlers who immigrated here shortly after John Law granted the Bay to Madame de Mezieres in 1718.
The flavor of Creole tradition is particularly strong along the main street, which follows the bay southward for half a dozen blocks or so, then curves westward along Mississippi Sound. A morning’s walk along the thoroughfare reveals the curious, foreign atmosphere that is the city’s own. For a quarter of a mile the narrow street is lined with restaurants, bakeries, groceries, and fish markets, their fronts bearing foreign names and many of their proprietors speaking a local patois almost unintelligible to the uninitiated. Black-robed priests and wimpled nuns; light-colored Negroes in whose blood is intermingled French, Spanish, and Indian strains; Italian grocers; Spanish restaurant owners; and French fishermen—all are here. Small fishing vessels chug up to the backdoors of markets and canning factories and deliver their catch. Dark-eyed Latin children hawk fish sandwiches and “penders.” The odors of hot French “twists”


BSL 1930 To 1949 MS Gulf Coast WPA American Guide Series (4)
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