100 Men D.B.A. Hall

The One Hundred Members' Debating Benevolent Association was incorporated in Bay St. Louis in 1894. Its charter promised to help members when sick and to bury the dead respectably, with entertainments to refill the treasury. Despite the name, twelve men founded it, and what its debates covered has been lost. In similar societies the initials D.B.A. stood for Death and Burial Association. By the 1950s insurance companies had taken over those duties. After Hurricane Katrina the hall was slated for demolition until Jesse and Kerrie Loya bought it in 2006, restored it, and kept the music going.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• INFINITY Science Center — 16 mi
  NASA's visitor center for Stennis Space Center, at the Mississippi welcome center near the Louisiana line, with a Saturn V booster outside and a story of five river towns that were moved.
• Ship Island and Fort Massachusetts — 23 mi
  A barrier island twelve miles off the Mississippi coast with a brick fort burned half-built in 1861, a Union prison camp, and the garrison post of the 2nd Louisiana Native Guard.
• Crosby Arboretum — 24 mi
  A Mississippi State University arboretum in Picayune showing the plants of the Pearl River basin, with Fay Jones's Pinecote Pavilion among the pitcher plant savanna and pines.
• Biloxi Beach Wade-In Marker — 27 mi
  The beachfront parking lot beside the Biloxi Lighthouse where state markers recall the 1959 and 1960 wade-ins that opened Mississippi's public beaches to Black residents.

More markers nearby

• Old Shieldsboro — 0.3 mi
• St. Stanislaus College — 0.4 mi
• St. Augustine's Seminary — 0.8 mi
• Elmwood Manor — 1.4 mi