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I2L
MEXICAN GULF COAST IKLUSTItATED.
45
It is about ntage on the } the Pasca-in proximity re sea-going of these car-mnoyer, Pie, )i*rento, aud •ade. There L. N. Dant-y & Co., two one planer; six mills in addition to •bors at the lighter craft >st Indies, 'tion of the >wing state-
om House, d at $134,-12,332.00; 57.
bbls. rosin, 4; oysters,
fruits were
>m House, led at $1,-.35.
,011 bbls. d oysters,
im House led at $1,-^.35. not been
completed when this statement was made up, but there has been quite an increase in the shipments.
PASCAGOULA.
While the first French settlement on this coast was made at old Kiloxi (Ocean Springs of to-day) a branch or outlying colony was started at Pascagoula,. That place was for many years the focal point of business. Fleets of steamboats and sailing crafts of various kinds on the sound carried on a business of much volume.
Pascagoula is a place around which many pleasant memories cluster in the recollections of numbers of persons who are at that time of life when they live over again past scenes and pleasures. Prior to the civil strife of thirty years ago, Pascagoula had the largest, the most extensive summer hotel in the South. It was 625 feet long, had several hundred rooms and for that day was elegantly equipped. Its capacity was sufficient to accommodate over 1,000 guests at one time. And it was liberally patronized by wealthy and cultured people of Alabama and Mississippi.
Why this place was selected for such a caravansary will not be asked by those who have visited Pascagoula. No finer sea view is presented on the northern shore of the Mexican main, than is seen at this point. It is truly magnificent with its blue and dancing waters, dotted with islands, a glassy river forming its western boundary ; no live oaks and magnolia trees are more grand, nor more balmy and fragrant the air. Pascagoula (as one authority says) is health itself; in Spring and Summer the breezes from the East and South are laden with saline solace that comes from over the sea, and in Autumn and Winter the winds from the west aqd north are tempered in their progress through pine forests in the background.
A number of persons of means in New Orleans have elegant residences and grounds at Pascagoula, among whom are Mr. John Taylor, whose property—villa Ada—is renowned for elegance, and Mr. J. J. Paquette whose recent improvements are an object of interest and of beauty.
FRUITLANDS.
There are less than fifty miles of the Coast country on Mississippi Sound. A personal inspection of this limited scope of country at different times during a year’s residence, and deliberate and candid examination of it, having, as the object, a fair presentatiop of its na/tural advantages, attractions and possibilities, has nade a deep impression upon the writer. The vivid description aud prophetic words of Mr. R. A. Wilkinson, published some years ago in the N. 0. Times-Democrat, may be accepted without reserve; and as pertinent in this connection, they are here reproduced:
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