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By KAT BERGERON
STAFF WRITER
,A people without history is like the wind on the buffalo grass. In modern language, that old Indian proverb means blowing aimlessly in Anywhere USA.
Enter historic preservation.
The growing trend to prevent a national !	sameness is taking
|	root on the Mississip-
pi Coast, especially in Biloxi where National Historic Preservation Week will be celebrated Friday. A public reception is planned at the Sea-pd Industry Museum — one of the city’s recent heritage attractions that has helped make it a regional preservation leader.
“If we don’t make a herculean effort to preserve our history in the next 15 to 20 years, we are in danger of becoming Anywhere USA, ” says Biloxi Mayor Gerald Blessey.
“We have to guard against the short-term fast buck made at the expense of long-term yields that are compatible with historic preser:
that grinds down old things,” he says.
Take for example the Biloxi Indians, thought to descend from the Sioux nation. They are gone and modern buidings sit atop their villages and campsites. Their legacy lives on only in name, scattered artifacts and a few liard-to-find archaeological sites. Kven the proverbial wind-blown grass is no more.
Yet, the old Indian proverb and ongoing National Historic Preservation Week share a common philosophy about history's enrichment of the present.
Family ties, architectural styles, landscape features such as the Mississippi Sound, lypes of food and other cultural-and-environmental traits help to build a “sense of place” — a phrase coined in the last decade to describe the need for community identity.
The theme for the week, which began Monday, is “Preservation: The People’s Choice.” Across the nation, history-oriented societies and governmental agencies are sponsoring
-—Thcrp s tins.enormous economic fores . awareness
onomic tores . awareness programs.
Bay St. Louis /'	?
Restored Hancock County Courthouse will be dedicated May 22.
Biloxi — Point Cadet
Biloxi’s preservation efforts include the Biloxi Schooner at Point Cadet Marina and the Seafood Industry Museum at Point Cadet.
To prevent a similar demise of later generations that settled the Coast, growing numbers of South Mississippians — not just Biloxians — are fighting historical lethargy.
In the fight
Six history/genealogy societies, some elected officials and private groups — such as the Daughters of American Revolution, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the garden clubs
— are working to preserve the past.
Their percentage is still small, but in the last decade the groups have had significant success in saving what hurricanes and the decay of time have not yet claimed.
Bay St. Louis has joined the list of Coast
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