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Version 03-17-14
Reconstruction (1865-1875)
Ten years of Post-Civil War Reconstruction resulted in numerous developments. Shieldsboro became the permanent county seat in 1867. The lumber industry resumed operations with large amounts of prime forestland ending up in the hands of lumber companies and northemjand speculators. Economic growth spurred construction of resort homes on Hancock County^ Gulf Coast again. A notable resort home from this period was Onward Oaks, a galleried cottage built on South Beach Boulevard in 1875. Onward Oaks survived until Hurricane Katrina destroyed it in 2005.
Onward Oaks (Camp Onward) (ca. 1875) (photo courtesy Hancock County Historical Society).
Reconstruction shifted population bases across the south, as the traditional plantation economy disappeared. All throughout the south, towns gained in population and as a result, schools and churches became more centralized. Church architecture of the period was utilitarian and simple. A common type was a one-story, wood frame structure with a front gable roof (Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration, 1938). Many of these churches have been abandoned or destroyed by fire'or hurricanes. St. Ann’s Mission, built in 1868, was an example of this building type. Formerly located on 9254 Lower Bay Road in Bayou Caddy, Hurricane Katrina inflicted severe damage on St. Ann’s Mission and it was removed.
Our Lady of the Gulf, the Catholic church in Bay St. Louis, saw African American and white parishioners celebrating mass together after the Civil War in an 1872 building that was later destroyed by fire. Timber-related industry returned to Hancock County, but never at a level comparable to the towns located on the Pearl River (Scharff, 1999).
Survey Data Publication Hancock County Mississippi
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