Meggan Monday: Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum
Nestled among the Oaks on the point of East Biloxi, you’ll find the beautiful Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum. It offers an interactive way to explore South Mississippi’s more than 300 years of history, heritage, and culture.
Outreach and Education Coordinator Elizabeth Alexander said, “This museum is a culmination of donations and rich history and contributions of all the people who have preceded us. In the late 1800s, the seafood industry became commercialized before it was just harvested for the local people that invited people from many nationalities together.”
“Coming across the bridge, she’s lit up beautifully at night is the Nydia, she was owned by Albert Baldwin Wood, who fell in love with sailing as a college student and made it a point even after he graduated college to sail his beloved Nydia to Horn Island every single weekend. He did perish aboard, only because of acts of nature. She was saved in the nick of time by captains of the Sail Fish. She was built specifically for speed and pleasure. She was not a working boat.”
“The Biloxi Schooners, they were the work boats, they were everything below was strictly for cargo they were meant for boat all living happened above deck. They had the larger sail configurations that could bring them out deeper waters and therefore keep harvesting going for more of the year and more of the areas. Of course, our Mississippi Sound having shallower waters leading up to our shorelines. So, a Biloxi Schooner is built with a shallower draft. There are no more original historics that we are aware of. But the Maritime Museum did have the two….and…. built so people can enjoy those.”
“It was a melting pot again of different cultures. People came over very poor and went to work. Factories came in they would build housing and churches and they were row houses that they would and although they were very modest, it was shelter and it was home and the able-bodied men would be the ones out on the boat doing the harvesting of the shrimp, the oysters and the fishing. While the women, the children, or maybe some who weren’t quite as able-bodied, they were the ones working in the factories and those days would start very early.”
“The flavor of what we have here and the Sound, people really appreciate that and so that keeps our industry alive here being. Our barrier islands, they make all the difference in the world nutrients from the Mississippi River and that Sound and although the beaches on the south side of our barrier islands may be the beautiful tourist attractions that other states enjoy, the nutrition between the barrier islands and our shores is what really contributes to the flavor and the richness.”
The museum is open seven days a week and they are gearing up for their highly popular summer camps right now. If you’re interested in learning more about sea and sail adventure camp, click here.
