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The Siiii/Thk Daily Herald
Bay council takes interest in historical restoration of downtown business district
By EDITH BIERHORST BACK
HERALD BAY BUREAU
BAY ST. LOUIS — Every town and city has its own special ambience, legends, ghosts, colorful characters. Bay St. Louis Is no exception, and the town fathers are hoping to hold onto them.
While shopping centers have sprouted In Bay St. Louis, they grew—and are still growing— along the most travelled route: U.S. 90, the divided four-lane highway which links the town with New Orleans on the west and the rest of the Mississippi Gulf Coast on the east. What happened to its old central business district in the meantime parallels the pattern of many a 20th century town where once-elegant banks, public libraries, small family businesses were abandoned in disrepair for shinier new digs.
But some things are starting to happen in the old Bay St. Louis business district, miniscule by today's urban standards since it embraces an area about three blocks square. Within that area are some architectural gems. Like the county courthouse on Main Street and City Hall on Second Street, eighteenth century cottages restored for law offices, Victorian cottages spruced up as restaurants. The restorations resulted not from official action or public money, but from aesthetes and private interests who regard old architecture not only as pleasant to have around but good business.
Last month, the Hancock County Historical Society published a walking tour guide through the small business district, containing pictures and brief histories of 17 outstanding historical sites. Mrs. Margaret Gibbens, president of the Hancock County Historical Society, said that for years she appeared before the Planning and Zoning Commission to ask that the integrity of old buildings be retained. “They don’t listen to
similar to New Orleans’ Vieux Carre Commission, which reviews building plans and is empowered to reject those which do not conform to the historical architecture of the French Quarter. The flavor of downtown Bay 6t. Louis differs in that it is a blend of mixed-period architecture.
The hoped-for investments and regulations in the area would result in reconstructions such as that completed last year on the Echo Building, constructed in 1903, to house The Sea Coast Echo. Over the years, the building, which faces the Mississippi Sound on Beach Boulevard, was occupied by tenants such as Merchants Bank and Trust Co. and Cumberland Telephone Co. Today, cited as one of the handsomest commercial structures on Beach Blvd., the building has a Hallmark store on the ground floor and living quarters on its balconied second floor.
Proponents of an architectural historical commission also cite the recently opened "Rather Southern" restaurant and bar, on Beach Boulevard next to the railroad track.
Constructed in 1910 as the town’s first gasoline station, it was later abandoned, served briefly as a pizza palace, then sat idly for years until imaginative investors turned it into a chic attraction for locals and tourists alike.
Wagner and Thriffiley also point to old family businesses on Beach Road off Main Street— Mauffrey’s Hardware and Ramsey’s Department Store—as exemplars of what the city wants to hold onto. Such stores retain the atmosphere of the quiet resort where someone can stroll in off the beach for a couple of crab nets or a wedding gift he forget to send before he left the city. If the customer is so inclined, the proprietors are handy with advice, chitchat, directions.
Sunday, September 14, 1980
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