Biloxi

Before it was a city, Biloxi was a people. They called themselves Tanêks, spoke a Siouan language, and descended from the mound-building Mississippian world. When Iberville arrived in 1699 he was told the nation had once been far larger, and he came upon a village abandoned after smallpox. In time the Biloxi were pushed west into Louisiana, where they merged with the Tunica; the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe won federal recognition in 1981 and shares a small reservation in Avoyelles Parish. Their language fell silent in the 1930s with Emma Jackson, who had described it to researchers in 1934.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art — 0.7 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.
• Biloxi Beach Wade-In Marker — 1.0 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 — 1.0 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.
• Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum — 1.5 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

• Chris LeDoux — steps away
• Church of the Redeemer — steps away
• Vance-Gillis House — 0.2 mi
• Debuys-Hermann-Keller House — 0.2 mi