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Celebrating HANCOCK COUNTY
Hancock County: 300 years of pride and progress
BY NAN PATTON EHRBRIGHT
THE SUN HERALD
Hancock County lays claim to the westernmost portion ot the Coast, facing the Bay ot St. Louis and the Mississippi Sound.
At one time, the county was much larger and included Harrison and Pearl River counties. “We kept the best and cut the rest,” loyal Hancock Countians brag.
One ot the fastest-growing counties in the state, county and city leaders try hard to balance small town charm and hospitality1 with economic growth and prosperity.
Stennis Space Center draws scientists from throughout the world, bringing high-tech to the countv. Industry continues to grow at Port Bienville Industrial Park.
The Board of Supervisors adopted a f irst-ever :oning ordinance tor the county in 1996. A $5 million bond issue passed in 1997 has enabled the board to improve 126 miles ot roads and overlay some streets in Bay St.
Louis and Waveland.
A covered equine arena is scheduled to open next month and construction of the Scott Demhoski soccer complex is continuing.
Buccaneer State Park in Waveland,
Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis and golf courses in Diamondhead are popular lighting spots for northern “snowbirds” fleeing winter weather.
Art galleries, antique shops and restaurants regularly entice collectors and gourmands from across the Coast and Louisiana.
The county participates in the annual Spring Pilgrimage and Cruisin’ the Coast celebrations. Other popular annual festivals include the Red Beans and Rice Cookoff fund-raiser, the Crab Festival, the Inter-
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national Food Festival, the Blast in the Bay classic car show and the library system's Holiday Tree Gala.
The Labor Day fireworks display in Waveland signals the beginning of fall. And at Carnival time, parade-goers have ample opportunities to add to their throws collections with parades sponsored by the Krewe of Nereids, The Krewe ot Kids, the Krewe of Diamondhead, the Krewe ot Selene and the Krewe of Real People.
The oldest St. Patrick’s Day parade on the Coast is celebrated in Waveland.
The neu> Diamondhead Country Club reopened with great fanfare in early June of this year.
Diamondhead - Some
BY NAN PATTON EHRBRIGHT AND METRIC DOCKINS
THE SUN HERALD
hen Purcell Corporation announced in 1969 that it had chosen Hancock County as the site for the largest residential-resort type ot recreational community in the South, probably no one dreamed that it would become the city-like subdivision that it is today.
Even before all the restaurants, shops and health care facilities that are available today were developed, many residents called the community “paradise.” Some said they’d like to build a moat around it to protect it.
But apparently it’s too late for that, tor it seems the secret is already out. While the 1990 census put Diamondhead population at only 2,761, the latest figures trom the Hancock County Circuit Clerk’s office shows that the community has more than 3,200 registered voters. And while the population growth rate countywide is about 26.5 percent, demographic experts say it is considerably higher in Diamondhead.
call it “paradise”
The original 5,500-acre site was known to Coastians as “the Gex property.” The Lucien Gex, his wife, two sons and four daughters moved from New Orleans to Hancock County in 1889.
The developers named the community Diamondhead because it sits on the highest ground in the Coast area, with elevations ranging up to 105 feet. Street names, landscaping and some architecture incorporates the style of the Pacific island for which it is named.
The subdivision has 11 miles ot shoreline, two on the Bay of St. Louis and nine on the Jourdan River and Bayou.
Phase 1 of the development included construction of 10 model homes, a condominium, a club house, an airport, a marina, riding stables, a driving range and 18 holes of a 36-hole golf course along with a security guard entrance, sales pavilion and administration building.
Golfing is what initially attracted many northerners.
whose annual return to the Coast during the winter to swing their clubs resulted in their being dubbed ‘snowbirds.”
For years, the hub of Diamondhead social life was the country club, which burned in 1995. The rebuilt club reopened in early June of this year, and it is already returning to its place of prominence in the community.
Treasured past of many communities enrich 300-year history
BY NAN PATTON EHRBRIGHT
THE SUN HERALD
Hancock County, organized in 1812, is bounded on the south by the Mississippi Sound and the Gulf of Mexico and on the west by the Pearl River.
Ranked 53rd in area, the county was named for John Hancock, first signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Only eight counties had been organized when Hancock and Jackson counties were formed on the same day; James Madison was president of the United States.
The four primary communities in the county include:
Bay St. Louis, Waveland, Kiln and Diamondhead. Other communities, past and present, which have enriched the history of the county include:
•	Ansley - 10 miles west of Bay St. Louis, established as a tlag stop on the L&.N Railroad.
•	Bayside Park - A subdivision west of Waveland.
•	Catahoula - A rural area on a tributary ot the Jourdan River in central Hancock County.
•	Claiborne - 23 miles west of Bay Sr. Lotus, this settlement was first called Grand Plains when it was settled in 1712.
•	Clermont Harbor - two miles west of Waveland and a tlag stop on the L&N Railroad.
•	Crane Creek - A country community 10 miles southwest of Perkinston and the site of Crane Creek Baptist Church,.
•	Fenton - A ghost sawmill tow»n established on a road leading through the Jourdan River
Swamp about four miles east ot Kiln. River steamers anchored here and unloaded their cargoes into a large warehouse. Bargemen steered their bulky craft down the bayous into the Jourdan River while, on shore, teamsters hauled logs through the swamp on ox wagons.
Just east of Fenton was a black settlement
1913 Logtown girls basketball team
inhabited mostly by descendants of Senegalese slaves.
•	Flat Top - seven miles southeast of Nicholson, named for a little log house with a flat roof that served as both church and school.
•	Gainesville - About 10 miles north of Pearlington and two miles east of the Old Spanish Trail, Gainesville was a prosperous town when it was the county seat.
Gainesville shared the early river trade with Pearlington and Li>gtown. The floating bar-rooms that were anchored on the Louisiana side to evade Mississippi’s dry laws had flourishing businesses. When the railroad was built in 1883, missing the town by 10
miles, it absorbed most ot the river shipping.
When the rocket test site now known as Stennis Space Center was built, the federal government bought land around it as a buffer zone. Gainesville, Logtown, Santa Rosa, Napoleon and Westonia disappeared.
•	Lakeshore - A resort settlement about one mile beyond Clermont Harbor, founded as a flag stop on the L&N Railroad. The station had several names; one was Fig Orchard.
•	Logtown - The now extinct town was located on the Pearl River north of Pearlington. It faced the river opposite the famous Honey Island Swamp and was divided by one main road through the town from the river. Running parallel with the road is Bougahoma Bayou, the dividing line between the white and black sections; the black section was known as Possum Walk.
Horatio Weston came here from Maine in the 1840s and founded the H. Weston Lumber Co. He built two mills with slave labor and eventually employed 1,200 men.
At one time, the area’s population numbered more than 3,000 people. The sawmills were operated continuously from 1850 to about 1950. On June 20, 1922, the largest amount of lumber ever taken out of Logtown was towed out for shipment to Buenos Aires, Argentina - nine barges containing a little over one million feet ot lumber.
•	Napoleon - A community six miles north of Pearlington on the Pearl River, settled in 1798. Brothers John J. and Noel Jourdan, tor whom the Jourdan River is named, were instnimental in its early settlement
•	Necaise - A sirvill rural community 19 miles north of Bay St. Louis.
•	Pearlington - 19 miles southwest ot Bay St. Louis, the community sits on the east hank of the Pearl River. The river and town were
named tor the tresh-water pearls found along the river bank. It was one ot the pioneering lumber towns. The 1990 census showed Pearlington with a population of 1,503.
•	Santa Rosa - Santa Rosa marks the Mississippi part of Honey Island Swamp, a wildlife refuge and for many years the refuge of pirate bands.
•	Sellers - On the Hancock-Harrison county border about 30 miles from Gulfport.
•	Shoreline Park - A subdivision just west and northwest ot Waveland.
•	Silver Creek Acres - Seven miles north of Bay St. Louis.
•	Standard - A small rural community 15 miles north of Bay St. Louis.
•	Westonia - An extinct sawmill town just east of Gainesville, Westonia was one ot the early group of towns, including Logtown, Pearlington and Gainesville, that was promoted by the H. Weston Lumber Co.
Saivmill towns were prevalent in Hancock county in the mid-1800’s