This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

GHTEEN-A—Dally Herald, Gulfport and Bilcud, Mississippi Coast
Hancock County: Created In 1812
...the amazing ten-year record of its board of supervisors; county was once two separate worlds
When Hancock County was created in 1812, six full years before the Territory of Mississippi became a state, it scrawled its signature big and bold over half of what is now the Mississippi Gulf Coast, like that Declaration of Independence signer after whom it was named.
But over the succeeding century, as southern Mississippi’s population spread out and communities increased, it sacrificed part of its magnificent coastline to help form Harrison County and relinquished a section of its northern area to Pearl River County. But it is still big and bountiful—still stretches along U.S. 90 from the Pearl River to Bay St. Louis— and is still 469 square miles of that healthy combination of piney woods, running streams and subtropical seashore which inveigles so many of those who casually come to visit to linger a lifetime.
For well over the first hundred years of its existence only a few
still are. The tourist business is growing steadily, and in spite of the fact that in 1957 the last several hundred acres of virgin long leaf pine in the state surrendered to the saw in Hancock County, the revenue of the county hundred people really knew the from its timber cut for pilings, charm of Hancock behind the coast-jpCies	pulpwood	still runs
line:	its	mile	after	mile	of	tall	around $2,000,000 income annually,
timber	country which	the	sawmill	j This is easy to understand — as
crews had passed through andievery traveler is aware of Han-passed on; its almost endles? realm coc](>s panorama of pine thickets
it
dustrial trend toward this rich and bountiful county that straddles Highway 90, the transcontinental short cut across the Deep South, and that forms the Western anchor end of the fast growing Mississippi Gulf Coast, picked by econo-
for flooded rice.
This represents a new agricultural product in Hancock — although J. L. Crump of Holly Bluff has been producing highland rice now for 16 years.
HANCOCK CATTLE	.	.	..	,	.	,	,	.
al	Imists as one of the brightest spots
Hancocks cattle also now repre-]on j^e nation’s economic map. sents a county income of $300,000 R(1,Rn n_ a year with its herds of native	rfport
cattle bred with Brahma bulls on. SUPERVISORS REPORT cut over land constantly improving! When the Centennial visitors con-in quality. In the county there are j verge in August on Bay St. Louis,
several registered herds of Aberdeen Angus, that of E. M. Brig-nac Jr. on the Poplarville road about ten miles above Kiln, being
A Bay Si
This pneun assemblies ! St. Louis j
curious about this county of which it is the seat, the Board of Supervisors can proudly present a magnificent ten year report not one of the finest on one of the j only of progress made but of prob-prettiest farms in the state. Withjlems solved — a report that dra-no winter worries, plenty of rain- matically shows that Hancock fall and plenty of grazing grass County with a present population of this county is as yet a practically!only 12,000 people (5800 of whom-untouched cattle kingdom.	jare	concentrated	in	the	Bay	St.,^«-	one
If this article had been writtenLouis-Waveland coastal area) has:sa*ely ana a year ago we could not have re- j doubled its assessed value in ten; •L,ana was ported any industrial activity —iyears from $5 million to $10 mil-,avenue lar but suddenly for the same basic lion.	:	$17000	was
reasons that new residents arej This report will show that Han-:iuCreas€ 0{ gravitating to Hancock to live,!cock County has grown in these: small industrial plants are coming!ten years from a Class 7 county to locate.	Jto a Class 4 county — that from!
o? trees and streams ideal for the hunter and fisherman; and its sprawling open cattle ranges sparsely spotted with farming communities.
WOODS PENETRATED
But today rural electric power lines and secondary roads have penetrated its piney woods, home seekers are scouting its rivers and tayous and coast cuddling subdivisions are shouldering their way back farther and farther through the trees beyond the highway. Just the last two years three huge suburban home developments began opening new homesites on the outskirts of Bay St. Louis. One on the Kiln road at the intersection of the Jordan River and Bayou LaCroix is clearing 8,000 waterfront lots on a 5-year program.
Hancock County until recently was two separate worlds:	the
populated and popular beach area around Bay St. Louis and Waveland and the practically unknown back country. But now it can proudly point, out to its Centennial visitors the beauty and availability o? its woods and waters, and the attractive opportunities for comfortable modem living back a few miles in the county and only a few minutes from the busy booming Coast strip of Bay St. Louis.
Since time immemorial Hancock’s chief sources of income have been tourists and timber. They
that parallel Highway 90 after loaves the Pearl River until gets to Bay St. Louis.
LARGE MILK PRODUCER
But there is nothing along the Coast highway to indicate that Hancock is the largest milk producing county on the Coast, for the majority of its 99 Grade A dairies are concentrated in the central and northern part of the county. Some of the finest Jersey herds in the state of Mississippi are the proud possession of Hancock County — supplying the Gulf Coast and the Louisiana-Mississippi Milk Producers plant in Picayune — an industry representing nearly a million dollars annual income to the county — a comparatively new industry a little over ten years old which gained its great stimulus around 1950 when rural electrification achieved full coverage.
Nor does the U. S. 90 route reveal the story that Hancock is the only county in the state outside of the Delta that produces flood rice commercially — that the first carload of rice in Hancock’s agricultural history was shipped in 1956 from the 133 acre plantation of L. L. Fletcher of Texas Flat Road just a few miles north of Bay St. Louis — and that he produced 20 barrels to the acre, which is 6 barrels an acre better than the Louisiana average, a state famous
cumulating When this \ out resortin tion, the ne
iing itself v
_ ______ . _______	___________ As soon i
In March of 1957 the Markel’a county with an indebtedness ofj^s ,new, ° Manufacturing Plant, makers of: $200,000 in 1948, part accumulated I	„c
aluminum framed screens and|and part the result	of the destruc- "”
doors, moved from New Orleansjtive 1947 hurricane	that swept the
to Coleman avenue in Waveland. [Coast, Hancock is now, in this Cen-This company has been operating jtennial Year of its County Seat, a in New Orleans since 1952, but‘county that has on deposit with all.	e, an1c
when Mr. Markel moved his home I accounts paid and all maturities	land al
to the Coast in 1954 for his baby’Simet, well over a quarter of a mil-|°ar aven’je health he suddenly discovered thatjlion dollars.	jmate	cost	c
it was also advantageous to move At this point we present the pres-; completely his plant operation too.	|ent	Board	of	Supervisors	and	Coun-p'ou	LaCro:
Here the company doubled its,ty officials, several	of whom havel This	new
business — found its shipping and served all or part	of this entire j bar	on	gri
traffic problems minimized — and is centrally located in its growing and booming trade territory that covers Southern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
ELECTRONIC PANELS Also to BaJ St. Louis in April 1957, came a new company and the only one of its kind in this area
ten year period of accomplishment,:has ample achieved with no tax increases, but' tions for 2 with careful administration and separate q rigid economy.	land female
BOARD OF SUPERVISORS,	ed- Its SPZ
HANCOCK COUNTY	through a
Charles A. Russ Jr., of Pearl- ?™V'J1<|fH ington — District No. 1, Mrs. Frank] ^,]le cus)
the new
Kellar, Route 1, Picayune — Dis-
of the South, producing electronic!trict No. 2, J. S. Shaw of Sellers,!yvnnne’Fi
panels for the chemical process in-iRoute 2, Perkinston — District No.IAal": hpT
dustry. The customers of this Moni-i 3, Jack Lott, President, of Kiln iv” " nl„
tor Panel Company are oil re-—District No. 4, R. G. Hubbardo
ninL/ tTT___i__j	oi	care.
fineries, naval stores plants, pulp 0f Waveland — District No. 5.
mills, insecticide and other chemical plants. It is easy to see that in this Coastal area, to which are converging more and more chemical plants, the Bay St. Louis location was intelligently chosen. H. A. Thompson Jr., and Reese Horton, both chemical engineers registered in Louisiana and Mississippi are the partner owners. Their employees are electricians and pipe fitters living in or near Bay St. Louis.
These two new industries, as Hancock County business men rea lize, are the first of a new ir,-
COUNTY OFFICERS
A. C. Mitchell — County Clerk, Marie E. Quintini — Deputy Clerk, Mr?,. A. C. Mitchell, Deputy Clerk, Sy'van J. Ladner Jr. — Sheriff, Cl diborne J. Ladner — Tax Collector, E. E. Breland — Supt. of Education.
/HANCOCK COUNTY REPAIRS STORM DAMAGE OF 1947
Following the storm of September 1947 which ripped great slabs of concrete out of the seawall and gouged great holes in the beach drive, the county had no available money to rebuild. But on
Mrs. Henri been in cl Croix hom and who v affection t woman in volition sh social seci transfer £ Dunbar a' deserved faithful an NEW nn HOSPITA1 When th pital on ( 1957 for 1