Historic site
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An 1847 hotel, the oldest left on this coast, which survives because the city picked it up in 1972 and moved it back from the water.
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Before the casinos, before the canneries, before the seafood industry that gave the city its name, Biloxi was a resort. New Orleans families came east along the coast in summer to escape yellow fever and heat, and somebody had to put them up. In 1847 a New Orleans coffeehouse keeper named John Hahn built a hotel for exactly that trade: a square, two-and-a-half-storey timber building with plastered walls, about fifty-four feet on a side, set where the guests wanted to be, which was as close to the water as possible.
Almost everything from that era on this shoreline is gone. Hurricanes took some of it, the highway took some of it, and the rebuilding after 2005 took most of what was left. The Magnolia Hotel is the last hotel building of its period on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and the reason it is still standing is not luck. In 1972 the City of Biloxi acquired the building and physically moved it about a hundred yards north onto higher ground, turning it to face east. Three years after Hurricane Camille had gone through, somebody looked at where it stood and decided it would not survive the next one.
That judgement was correct. The building had already taken considerable damage in Camille in 1969, and it was damaged again by Katrina in 2005, from a position it would almost certainly not have survived had it stayed where it was built.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in March 1973 and designated a Mississippi Landmark in 1985. Since the move it has been a museum building, including a period housing Biloxi's Mardi Gras collection, and its use has changed more than once. Before you make a trip specifically for the interior, check what is open — the exterior and the site are worth ten minutes regardless, and it sits a short walk from the visitor centre, the Town Green and the lighthouse.
The building stands on Rue Magnolia, a short walk north of Beach Boulevard in the small cluster of civic and historic sites near the Biloxi Lighthouse and the Town Green.
The simplest approach is to park free at the visitor centre on the north side of US 90 opposite the lighthouse and walk. It is a few minutes on level pavement, and it puts the Katrina Memorial and the lighthouse crossing on the same short loop.
Driving directly, come off the beach road at the Rue Magnolia junction; on-street parking nearby is limited and the visitor centre lot is the reliable option.
From the casino district at the eastern end of the peninsula it is a few minutes west by car. From Ocean Springs, cross the Biloxi Bay Bridge and continue west on US 90 for about ten minutes.
Moving a nineteenth-century timber hotel is not a cheap gesture, and the decision in 1972 tells you something about what this coast had just been through.
Hurricane Camille came ashore in August 1969 as one of the strongest storms ever to hit the United States mainland, and it removed a great deal of the old Mississippi beachfront. The Magnolia Hotel took considerable damage. Rebuilding it where it stood, on low ground close to the water, would have meant repeating the exercise after the next storm.
So the city took the building back from the shoreline, set it on higher ground and turned it ninety degrees to face east. The reorientation matters as much as the distance: the building now presents its narrower exposure to the prevailing storm approach rather than its long face.
Thirty-three years later Katrina tested the decision. The building was damaged and required restoration, but it is still here, which almost nothing else of its generation on this shoreline is.
If you want one object that explains how this coast thinks about hurricanes, it is not a memorial or an exhibit. It is a hotel that was carried up the hill.
The building has housed Biloxi's Mardi Gras collection, and the carnival tradition here is a good deal older than the casino era that now dominates the city's image.
Biloxi's first city-sponsored parade rolled on 3 March 1908, led by a queen titled Ixolib — Biloxi spelled backwards, which is the kind of joke a small coastal city makes about itself and then keeps for more than a century. The Gulf Coast Carnival Association dates from the same year.
Carnival on the Mississippi coast is not a scaled-down New Orleans. It is a locally organised season of parades and balls through the weeks before Lent, run by krewes with long memberships, and in Biloxi it runs along the beach road rather than through a French Quarter.
If you are here in the run-up to Ash Wednesday you will find the city genuinely busy with it, hotel rates up, and the beach road closed for parades on certain days. If you are here in July, the costumes in a museum case are as close as you get.
Straight-line distances, so allow more on the road — the island is long and has one main parkway.
Landmark
An 1848 cast-iron tower marooned in the median of a four-lane highway, kept for sixty-three years by one family of women.
0.5–1 hoursFree to see and photograph from the street or the beach. Climbing the tower carries a small fee when climbs are running.0.8 mi away
Landmark
Free parking, restrooms and a staffed desk opposite the lighthouse, in a city where half of what you want to do is seasonal.
15–45 minutesFree, including parking. Lighthouse climbs are ticketed separately when they run.830 ft away
Historic site
A monument on the Town Green carrying the names of people who died in this city on 29 August 2005.
15–30 minutesFree. There is no ticket and no attendant.300 ft away
Museum
Canneries, schooners, net-making and the Vietnamese shrimp fleet: the museum that explains why Biloxi is here at all.
1.5–2.5 hoursA modest admission charge for adults, with lower rates for children, students and seniors. Schooner sailings are priced separately.1.9 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…
Things to do
For a city of fewer than fifty thousand people, Biloxi carries an improbable number of separate histories, and they do not blend. The French landed…
Budget
Most coastal towns charge you for the privilege of arriving. A beach parking permit, a per-hour lot, a chair-and-umbrella concession that owns the…
Guide
Six museums, an 1848 lighthouse in the middle of a highway, and one site whose interpretation is contested. What each one is, and which to give your afternoon to.
10 min readAdeline Boudreaux
Guide
Most people arrive expecting a beach town and find a working port with eight casinos, a shrimp fleet and a waterfront rebuilt after 2005. Here is how to read the place.
9 min readCorinne Ladner
Guide
Almost everything a visitor sees on the Biloxi waterfront is younger than 2006. This is why, told with the dates, the numbers and the things that were not rebuilt.
9 min readAdeline Boudreaux
It was built in 1847 for John Hahn, a New Orleans coffeehouse keeper, to lodge visitors drawn to Biloxi's antebellum summer resort trade. It is the oldest surviving hotel building on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a two-and-a-half-storey timber structure with plastered exterior walls roughly fifty-four feet on a side. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in March 1973 and designated a Mississippi Landmark in 1985.
Because of where it stood. Hurricane Camille badly damaged the building in August 1969, and in 1972 the City of Biloxi acquired it and moved it about a hundred yards north onto higher ground, turning it to face east. The decision looks sound in hindsight: Katrina damaged the building again in 2005, from a position it very likely would not have survived had it remained on its original site near the water.
Sometimes, and it depends when you ask. The building has been used as a museum since the move, including a period housing Biloxi's Mardi Gras collection, but its use and its opening pattern have changed more than once. Check with the Biloxi Visitors Center, a few minutes' walk away on the beach road, before making a trip specifically for the interior. The exterior and the site are worth a short stop regardless.
This is the only genuinely walkable cluster in Biloxi. The Biloxi Lighthouse stands in the median of US 90 a short walk south, the Town Green and the Katrina Memorial are on the same block, and the visitor centre with free parking and restrooms is beside them. The Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum at the eastern end of the peninsula is a short drive and completes the pre-casino history of the city.