Beauvoir

Beauvoir is remembered as Jefferson Davis's last home, but most of its later life was as a Confederate memorial. Early in the 1900s the Mississippi Sons of Confederate Veterans bought it, and for decades it housed more than two thousand veterans, wives and widows; 771 veterans and wives are buried in its cemetery. A Davis shrine opened in 1941 and a Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Soldier in 1981. This is the Lost Cause, the postwar memory that made the Confederacy honorable. Mississippi's 1861 secession declaration said its position was thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Biloxi Beach Wade-In Marker — 4.1 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.
• Biloxi Lighthouse — 4.1 mi
  A cast-iron tower lit in 1848 on the Biloxi beachfront, kept by women for most of its first century and still in service after Camille and Katrina.
• Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art — 5.8 mi
  Frank Gehry's pavilions on the Biloxi waterfront, built around the pottery of George Ohr, the self-styled Mad Potter, and the rebuilt Pleasant Reed House.
• Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum — 6.6 mi
  A Point Cadet museum on Biloxi's oyster, shrimp and schooner past, from the packing houses and the shrimpers' unions to the Vietnamese families who rebuilt the industry.

More markers nearby

• Gulf Coast Military Academy — 2.8 mi
• White House Hotel — 3.5 mi
• Father Ryan House — 3.6 mi
• Mississippi City Colored School — 3.8 mi