Historic Biloxi Walking Tour: The Clemens House and Scherer House

In our new segment ‘Live Local’ News 25’s Lorraine Weiskopf is highlighting places of interest along the Coast every Thursday.

Today, we visit stop number three and four of the Walking Tour.

Stop number two on the Biloxi Walking Tour is the Old Biloxi Library, if you keep going down Water Street you’ll pass stops three and four.

Stop number three is the Clemens House. It’s one of the oldest houses in Biloxi. Biloxi Library Historian Jane Shambra said, “It’s got the amazing front porch so years ago when there was nothing on the highway you could sit on the front porch and get breezes from the Gulf and watch the steamboats go by. So, it must have been a great place to live.”

It’s named after the Clemens family, acquiring the house in 1869. Descendants lived there for 90 years. “It’s amazing that this house is still here as close as we are to the highway and the Mississippi Sound, it has been through not only Katrina but all the other storms as well.”

Down the road from the Clemens House is stop number 4 on the tour, the Scherer House. While this house shares the same resilience from storms like the Clemens House, the design has Spanish influence. This house is also referred to as the ‘Old Spanish House.’ “This house, unlike the other one is basically of brick construction, and it has a little porch at the bottom and another one at the top.”

The Scherer House, like the Clemens, is named after a family that lived there and both are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The two houses are located on Water Street, which has its own historical significance. “It’s a very short street, but a very safe street because it wouldn’t flood as much as the highway would years ago. We’re talking mid-1800s.”