Vignettes - Etcetera
Mosquito Lore
People who must endure the mosquito population during the sultry summers and autumns of the South tend to create stories on the various sizes of these pesky creatures in their areas. Such exaggeration is not a new phenomenon. In the M. James Stevens collection of papers in the vertical file of the Hancock County Historical… (read more)
Bay Saint Louis Brag Sheet of 1915
Back in 1915 when I.F. Banderet was Bay St. Louis city Marshall, F.H. Egloff was tax collector and L.B. Capdepon was mayor, these men and municipal officers got together and came up with the following list of pluses. The list was printed as an advertisement in support of a Catalog of the City Schools of… (read more)
Early Telephone Service
Telephone service came to Bay St. Louis August 18, 1899 and 47 total telephones were initially served by this exchange. One year later the total number of telephones had climbed to 108 and by 1905 to 190. It wasn’t until 1910 that the total number of telephones served by the Bay St. Louis exchange passed… (read more)
19th Century Medical Quackery
The term of Andrew Jackson has been called the Age of the Common Man. Basic trends included anti-intellectualism, rejection of experts and belief that the common man was the best person to decide his own destiny, even in matters of life and death. One consequence was the rapid growth of medical quackery. As an American… (read more)
Devil’s Swamp – 1830 Indian Hideout
Long before the advent of the French explorers, the area now known as Hancock County was inhabited by Native Americans, members of the Choctaw Muskhogean family. The area of present-day Bay St. Louis contained an Indian village called Chicapoula (or Chou-cou-pou-lou), meaning “bad grass.” Living in this paradise, the natives hunted plentiful game such as… (read more)
Steamboats: General History
PROGRESS OF STEAMBOATING Every year has seen some new steamboat constructed which surpasses in size, magnificence, or speed, those previously made. There is no doubt that the mechanics of this country excel those of any other in their inland steamboats — let us hope that in a few years the same can be said… (read more)
State Flower, Motto, Bird and Tree
Hancock county and Jackson were the only two large counties which comprised the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1817 when Mississippi became a state at the First Session, First General Assembly (1817-1818). The great Seal of Mississippi was adopted and is described in the Laws of the State as follows: “The seal of the state, the… (read more)
Trains
“I never thought I would miss the sound of the trains passing through the Bay. When I first moved back to Bay St. Louis, we lived right across from the depot. The first night we were awakened not only by the wailing of the train, but by the sound of my pictures falling from the… (read more)