Live Local: Ronald McDonald Statue at Edgewater Mall McDonald’s

On today’s edition of Live Local, News 25’s Lorraine Weiskopf takes us to a place in Biloxi that will ‘surely put a smile on.’

McDonald’s. Biloxi has been lovin’ it since 1962 when patrons could look for the city’s original Golden Arches on Pass Road. What’s more iconic that the fast-food chain’s signature Big Mac with two all-beef patties? Ronald McDonald!

Today you can still see Ronald McDonald clowning around inside the Edgewater Mall McDonald’s in Biloxi. Although he looks a little worn, as he should since he’s had a rough life. In 1992, he was kidnapped! Biloxi Library Historian Jane Shambra said, “In the middle of the night, all of the sudden, he was gone. They put out an APB for him and they found him in California, believe it or not.”

Ronald was retrieved and brought back to Biloxi, yet this wasn’t the last time he was taken away from his home.

The original Edgewater Mall McDonald’s was washed away during Hurricane Katrina and with it the Ronald McDonald statue. The statue was carried almost half a mile down the road and discovered by the railroad tracks. He was later brought back to his destroyed home. “Amazingly, the first responders that came to help Biloxi from all over the world and all over the United States started signing him.”

With signature upon signature, Ronald McDonald not only welcomes patrons to McDonald’s, but a city of resilience.

Live Local is made possible with the support of the Biloxi Library System.