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The 60 room historic Pass Christian ^ -lotel just mentioned, which was located where the new Miramar Village Nursing and Convalescent Home stands today, was most popular under the management of R. H. Montgomery and became known as “Montgomery’s."
In July of 1849 he promoted a sailboat race from the hotel pier to Cat Island and back. So pleased were the participants with the race itself and Montgomery’s lavish hospitality that they then and there over drinks served in the hotel parlor organized the Southern Yacht Club, the oldest in the South and still in existence at New Orleans.
During the prosperous and popular antebellum era many small hotels and boarding houses were established along the Coast. They succeeded and remained open for a while under various managements, but we have room in this resume only for those which had historical significance.
In 1837 John J. McCaughan and a group of Scotch-Irish pioneers formed the Mississippi City Company for. which they received a charter to build a railroad to be known as the Brandon and Gulf Shore from northern Mississippi to the Gulf Coast and to lay out a town at Gulf Coast terminus to be known as Mississippi City. The location was then a lonely, uninhabited stretch of beach.
The railroad failed to materialize but the town of Mississippi City did not—
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MISSISSIPPI CITY. MISS.
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Fare and Comfort Guaranteed First-Class.
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Nine Hundred Fojt Front, 1200 Feet i? Foot Wide Galleries, Hvuy Room a Front Room Facimr the South and the Gulf.
Terms Reasonable.
Open the Year Round.
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ter first known as the Paradise Point Hotel built by Dr. Teagarden in 1855.
Both hotels became nationally famous when John L. Sullivan defeated Paddy Ryan for the Heavyweight Championship of the World in an improvised ring on the lawn of the Barnes Hotel then located at the corner of present day Texas Street and U.S. 90. Here was recorded the first knockout in ring history. At Mississippi City on that sunny February day of 1882 was born big-time professional boxing.
an old poster.
six hundred people doubled in the summer with the influx of resort guests.
At Biloxi is the oldest still standing hotel on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Although not now in operation its sign still hangs in front. It was built in 1847 by John Hahn, a naturalized German from Hanover who had emigrated to New Orleans where he had become a successful saloon keeper. The reason behind the building of the Magnolia Hotel in Biloxi was the same reason that has lured so many permanent resi-
f the Mississippi Gulf Coast
but went on to become the seat of Harrison County in 1841, missed securing the location of “Ole Miss” by one legislative vote but shortly became the Mississippi Coast’s most popular summer resort with the upcountry planters.
It was famous for two historic hotels —the Barpes and the Teagarden, the lat-
During the preparations for the big bout Paddy Ryan headquartered at the Barnes, while Sullivan had his training setup at the Teagarden.
In 1847 DeBows Review rated Biloxi as the largest summer resort town of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, stating that its normal population of around five or
Old Magnolia Hotel on Magnolia Street is the oldest still standing in Biloxi. It was built when steamboats came over from New Orleans with families and the bachelors.
dents to the Coast — the search for health.
His son had become ill and not expected to live. The doctor recommended that he be taken to the Mississippi Coast as his only chance for recovery. Here the boy regained his health so rapidly in the sweet salt air that John Hahn decided he would establish a business here and make Biloxi his home.
On March 3, 1847 he placed the contract for the Magnolia Hotel, so named because of the huge Magnolia tree on the property. The building was to be forty feet square and two stories high with seven foot galleries completely encircling the building on both levels. You won’t believe this — but tht contractor agreed to build the hotel and furnish all materials for $2500.
To the Magnolia came a deluge of summer guests by boat. With the exception of the Civil War interim the Magnolia operated steadily until World War II, when it finally tired of the competition of the modern motels and quietly retired into history.
It proudly remembers those many years when it was so crowded guests were grateful for the privilege of sleeping on the gallery, and when its huge dining room served the famous Magnolia 75 cent dinners to hundreds of hungry visitors who swarmed to the Coast on those famous Wednesday and Saturday