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8-THE SEA COAST ECHO, TERCENTENNIAL EDITION, THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1999
The great fire
On November, 16, 1907, the Sea Coast Echo reported that a “conflagration originating from unknown causes destroyed a business portion of Bay St. Louis [on Front Street], including St. Joseph’s Academy and Church of Our Lady of the Gulf. Losses will reach 5250.000.”
The fire originated in the Bay Mercantile Co. building on the ground floor of the Opera House owned by John Osoinach. Buildings burned and damaged:
Opera House
Clifton Hotel Studio of Chas. A. Butler Residence and Business of A. Weinberg.
St. Joseph’s Academy Church of Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Rectory H. Des Gillum Store Thomas Reed Drug Store Crescent Hotel (“Markey House”)
Also several buildings owned by Mrs. L. U. Planchet:
Planchet Building, occupied by Kosminsky and Layman
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One of the first resorts
The Pickwick Hotel, which catered to Bay St. Louis’ burgeoning tourism industry, burned in 19C then was rebuilt and dedicated in the spring of 1908. The site is now home to the Fire Dog Salo and Court Street antiques.
on the first floor and the second floor by the Cumberland Telephone Company’s central exchange; the King’s Daughters Library; the offices of Dr. R. J. Turner, and Mrs. Planchet’s residence.
A later report by the Daily Record-Tribune of Gulfport notes the loss of Evans Drug Store, an annex to the Clifton Hotel, a fruit stand, Miss Josie Welch’s Book Store and a number of private
dwellings. The fire extended to the comer of Union Street before it was under control.
“The Bay is supplied with a very' poor fire fighting apparatus and still poorer system of water works,” the newspaper reported. “It was only the wide sweep of open country between the bank and the Pickwick Hotel that kept the latter from going also.”
The Opera House, recently
built at a cost of $12,000, wa “said to be insured for aboi $4,000,” the report continue: “The Merchants Bank [which sui vived]was completed about si months ago of brick and cos $10,000. The Convent consiste of several buildings worth in th neighborhood of $18,000 t< $20,000. The Church ...and thi rectory cost about $20,000.” Cecil B. DeMille was amon the famous artists who performe at Osoinach’s Opera house.
Crossing the Bay
In 1928 the ferry across the Baiy of St. Louis was replaced with the wooden bridgeTbuilTSt a cosf of $7t>Z,610 of creosoted pilings and timber.
This project, spearheaded by Horatio S. Weston of Logtown, then president of the Board of Supervisors, transformed Bay St. Louis from an independent and isolated resort town to the open western portal of the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The ancient ferry had chugged laboriously between Bay St. Louis and Henderson Point.
Weather and tide played a deciding role in its schedule and many times caused travelers long delays.
Not even the $7 million steel and concrete toll bridge, opened 25 years later was as important as the first highway bridge across the Bay.
Water in the Bay of St. Louis is comparatively shallow' rarely more than 10 feet deep at normal tide.
Maintenance dredging in recent years has assured an open channel for .shipping .vessel,
sailboats and most recently, a large casino barge, to pass through the channel.
And, of course, the original
design included the open spar at times an inconvenience t motorists, but free passage t vessels.
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Continued from previous page compared to that of the enemy,” Jones wrote. He appended a roster of the five gunboats captured by the British, with their force of 42 launches and barges with large cannon and three gigs carrying small arms plus about 1,000 troops.
Losses included 6 Americans killed and 35 wounded; the British 17 killed and 77 wounded.
While the British won this skirmish, the action in the Bay of Saint Louis and the Sound caused a delay in the attack on New Orleans, enabling Gen. Andrew Jackson to raise a force sufficient to win the Battle of New Orleans.
In its account of the War of 1812, the Ency clopedia Brittanies concludes:
“The America Navy was but a puny adversary of the British Navy, which has captured or shut up in port all other navies of Europe. But the small number of American vessels, with the superabundance of trained officers, gave them one great advantage: the training and discipline bf the men, and the
equipment of the vessels had bee brought to the highest point.
“The art of handling and fighting th old broadside sailing frigate had bee carried in the little American Navy to a excellence with unvarying success.. Altogether the American vessels gave remarkably good account of them selves.”
(Sources:	Historical Memoir of Thi
War in West Florida and Louisiana ii 1814-15 by Major A. LaCarriere La tour, facsimile of the 1816 edition, Uni versity of Florida Press 1964; Encyclopedia of Mississippi History by Dunbai Rowland, Selwyn A. Brant, publisher 1907, vol. 2, pp 265 -267; The Nava, War of 1812 by Theodore Roosevelt, Standard Library edition, Putnam’s Sons 1903; Historical Account of Hancock County and Sea Board of Mississippi, address by Honorable J.F.H. Claiborne of Bay St. Louis, July 4, 1876. Hopkins Printing Office, New Orleans Louisiana; Encyclopedia Brittanica, 195? edition. Vol. 22, p.,797.)
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