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Pass Marian Lighthouse Off Cat Island
For 85 years its beacon guarded the Sound
by F. Bryant Bettis__________
The Pass Marian Light House just off the western tip of Cat Island warned vessels in the Gulf of Mexico to steer clear of the shallow waters in the Mississippi Sound.
The light was a familar beacon in the distance for beachfront residents in Waveland and Bay St.
Louis for 85 years.
Also known as the Merrill Shell Bank Lighthouse, the permanent navigational station began its watch on August 10, 1859, when it relieved a lightship anchored at the point since 1847.
Historians say the lantern was 45 feet above sea level and sat atop a lighthouse keeper's wooden dwelling. The station itself was perched atop five iron screw pilings.
The lighthouse was equipped with a large hand-struck bell. The bell served as one of only two fog signals on the Gulf Coast east of Galveston, Texas.
At the onset of the Civil War,
Confederate troops put the lighthouse out of commission as federal warships enforced a blockade of New Orleans and Mobile.
Union forces took control of the Sound and began utilizing the station's powerful beacon in 1863.
The lighthouse survived, by all
An early postcard depicting the Marian Lighthouse.
accounts, with only minor damage inflicted during the conflict.
The original lighthouse structure caught fire on the morning of Sept. 6, 1883. Published accounts indicate the station was completely destroyed except for the iron pilings. Reports blame a faulty stovepipe as the culprit responsible for starting the fire on the shingled roof.
But by the end of November, less than 90 days after the fire, a new lighthouse was constructed on the original pilings.
This time, the new station was capped with a non-combustible slate roof.
Modern times caught up with the Pass Marian lighthouse just prior to World WTar II when the
lantern was automated by changing its fuel source from coal oil to acetylene gas.
The end of an era came in 1944. The waterbound columned porch and two-story Victorian-styled keeper's home were tom down in favor of a small steel skeleton tower erected on the original pilings.
The colorized copy of an early Post Card from Bay St. Louis, pictured on the Bay Magic cover and on this page, reflects the beauty of the gulf and a romantic time of sailing schooners roaming the waves.
The copy, owned by Edith Back, is on display at the Hancock County Historical Society's Kate Lobrano House in Bay St. Louis.