Museum
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A children's museum in a 1915 schoolhouse with seven and a half acres of outdoor play behind it, twenty minutes west of Biloxi.
Photo: Tony WebsterCC BY 2.0
Families staying in Biloxi with children under about ten end up here eventually, and the drive west is the first thing to know: Lynn Meadows is in Gulfport, in the Mississippi City neighbourhood a few blocks back from the beach road, roughly twenty minutes from the Biloxi Lighthouse.
It occupies the old Mississippi City Elementary School, built in 1915, which is why the indoor half feels nothing like a purpose-built attraction. Exhibits are arranged through former classrooms over more than one floor — around fifteen thousand square feet of them — and the corridors, staircases and high windows of a century-old school are part of the experience rather than something the museum has worked around.
The outdoor half is the part that surprises people. Seven and a half acres of grounds under mature live oaks hold a set of named play environments rather than a playground: a small creek area with a log cabin, a street of child-scale buildings, a treehouse village built into century-old oaks, an open-ended construction yard, a weather station and a lookout pointed south towards the barrier islands. There is a splash pad for hot days and an aquaponics exhibit developed with the University of Southern Mississippi.
The museum opened in May 1998 and is named for Lynn Meadows, a young woman from this coast who died in a car accident in 1984. In 2005 the storm surge destroyed the entire ground floor of exhibits along with the education building; the museum rebuilt, added a performing arts centre in 2009, opened the largest outdoor exhibit in 2016, and took the National Medal for Museum and Library Service the same year as one of ten recipients nationally.
Two practical notes that matter more here than at an ordinary museum. Because so much of it is outside, weather genuinely changes the value of a visit, and because it is pitched at younger children, the upper age limit arrives sooner than parents of eleven-year-olds expect.
From Biloxi, drive west on US 90 along the beach road for about twenty minutes and turn inland in the Mississippi City part of Gulfport; the museum sits a few blocks back from the water on Dolan Avenue and is signed from the highway. There is parking on site.
Coming from the casino district at the east end of the Biloxi peninsula, allow half an hour in ordinary traffic. US 90 is the only continuous coastal route and it backs up around the Gulfport harbour on weekend afternoons.
From Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport it is about ten minutes south. The coast transit route runs along US 90, but the walk in from the beach road with small children in summer heat is longer than it looks on a map.
Most museums are weather-proof. This one is roughly half indoor exhibits in the old school and half outdoor play across seven and a half acres, and that split is the single most useful thing to plan around.
On a hot Gulf Coast afternoon in July, the outdoor half is punishing from about eleven until five, and the splash pad becomes the only part of it anybody uses willingly. Arrive at opening, take the grounds first while the oaks still hold some cool, then move indoors as the heat builds. The pattern reverses in winter, when the classrooms are warm and the grounds are pleasant all day.
In steady rain, the indoor exhibits alone are worth perhaps ninety minutes to two hours with a young child. That is a reasonable rainy-morning answer, but it is not the full visit, and paying full price for half the museum is worth knowing about in advance.
Afternoon thunderstorms from June to September build fast and clear fast. If one arrives, the indoor half absorbs it and the grounds usually dry out within the hour.
The outdoor exhibits are named and distinct rather than a single play area, and children work through them in sequence.
Tree House Village is built into live oaks of about a century old, which on this coast means trees that stood through Camille and Katrina. Kids Street is a run of child-scale buildings laid out like a small subdivision. Bear Creek has a log cabin and a water feature. Imagination Playground is a yard of loose parts with no instructions, which is either the best or the worst thing here depending on your child.
On the Green is the newest of them, opened in 2016 on the south side of the site. It carries a lookout pointed towards the barrier islands, a weather station, and a musical garden with ground-level instruments. The Seagull Splash Pad runs in warm weather; bring a towel and a change of clothes, because children who did not intend to get wet will get wet.
Aquaponics in Action, built with the University of Southern Mississippi, demonstrates fish and plants grown in one closed system. It is quieter than the rest and holds the attention of older siblings who have decided they are too old for the treehouses.
The sweet spot is roughly two to nine. Toddlers get the scale-model street and the water; primary-age children get the treehouses, the construction yard and the hands-on exhibits indoors.
Children of eleven and up will exhaust it faster than the ticket justifies, and a family with teenagers is better served by the Mississippi Aquarium fifteen minutes east along the beach road, or by a Shuckers game in Biloxi in season.
Grandparents do well here, because there is shade, seating and a sightline across most of the grounds. There is also a real advantage over an indoor-only museum on this coast: children who have been in a car or a casino hotel for two days can run.
If you are weighing it against Ship Island, take the island on a good day in the ferry season and keep this for the day the weather turns. The island only runs half the year; the museum does not.
Straight-line distances, so allow more on the road — the island is long and has one main parkway.
Neighbourhood
Mississippi's second city, twelve miles west along the beach road, holding the Ship Island ferry, the airport and the aquarium.
1–5 hoursFree to visit. Jones Park and the harbour cost nothing; the ferry, the aquarium and the casinos do not.4 mi away
Entertainment
Five and a half acres of aquarium on the Gulfport beach road, opened fifteen years to the day after the storm that emptied it.
2–4 hoursPaid admission, with child and senior rates and annual memberships available.2.5 mi away
Historic site
The beachfront house where Jefferson Davis spent his last twelve years, now a museum, a cemetery and a privately run presidential library.
1.5–2.5 hoursPaid admission. House tours and the library have been ticketed separately as well as together.3.6 mi away
Neighbourhood
An oyster harbour, a shaded drive of rebuilt houses and the site of the highest storm surge ever measured in the United States.
2–5 hoursFree. The harbour, Scenic Drive and the waterfront parks cost nothing.13.7 mi away
Where this place fits into a day, and the pages that plan one.
Guide hub
Biloxi is confusing for about an hour and then it makes complete sense. You arrive on a four-lane highway with water on one side and casino towers…
Guide hub
Almost everything on this list is on one road or reached from it. US 90 runs the length of the Biloxi peninsula with the Mississippi Sound on the…
Who it suits
Bringing children to a casino city sounds like a category error and it is not, but it does require knowing three things that nobody tells you at…
Things to do
Biloxi sits in the middle of a coast that runs in a straight line, which makes it an unusually good base. Interstate 10 runs east and west a few…
Guide
A shallow warm beach with no surf, a working shrimp boat that hauls a net for you, and two of the best children's attractions sitting twenty-five minutes down the road in Gulfport.
8 min readCorinne Ladner
It is in Gulfport, in the Mississippi City neighbourhood a few blocks north of the beach road on Dolan Avenue, about twenty minutes west of the Biloxi Lighthouse along US 90. There is parking on site. Allow half an hour from the casinos at the eastern end of the Biloxi peninsula, and longer on a weekend afternoon when the highway slows around the Gulfport harbour.
Broadly two to nine. Toddlers do well with the child-scale street, the water features and the ground-floor exhibits; primary-age children get the treehouse village, the loose-parts construction yard and the hands-on rooms in the old school. Children of eleven and upwards will work through it quickly. Families with teenagers usually get more out of the Mississippi Aquarium or a Biloxi Shuckers game in season.
Two to three hours for most families, and a full half day if the weather is good and you use the grounds properly. Roughly half the museum is outdoors across seven and a half acres, so a wet day cuts the visit to the indoor exhibits alone, which is nearer ninety minutes to two hours. Plan the outdoor half for the cooler end of the day in summer.
The 2005 storm surge destroyed the entire ground floor of exhibits along with the artist studio, the offices and the education building, and flooded the gymnasium. The museum rebuilt and then expanded: a performing arts and education centre opened in 2009, the largest outdoor exhibit opened in 2016, and the same year it received the National Medal for Museum and Library Service as one of ten recipients nationally.