Evelyn Gandy House

Evelyn Gandy twice led the Democratic primary for governor. In 1979 she took about 30 percent and lost the runoff to William Winter, who took 57 percent. In 1983 she took 38 percent and lost the runoff to William Allain. She never married and lived near Hattiesburg with her sister, Frances. After her death in December 2007, she became the first woman to lie in state in the rotunda of the Mississippi Capitol. She is buried at Roseland Park Cemetery in Hattiesburg.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• African American Military History Museum — 3.0 mi
  The wooden USO club that opened in March 1942 for Black soldiers training at Camp Shelby, now a museum of African American military service from the Revolutionary War to Iraq.
• Longleaf Trace — 3.4 mi
  A 44-mile paved rail-trail from Hattiesburg to Prentiss on the old Pearl & Leaf Rivers and Mississippi Central line that hauled the Piney Woods timber.
• Forrest County Courthouse and Dahmer Memorial — 3.5 mi
  The courthouse where Hattiesburg held Freedom Day on January 22, 1964, and where a memorial now honors Vernon Dahmer, killed by Klansmen in 1966.
• Hub City Historic District — 3.6 mi
  Hattiesburg's twelve-block downtown, a railroad town laid out in 1880s pine country, with the Saenger Theater, the courthouse and the 1910 depot.

More markers nearby

• Vernon F. Dahmer, Sr. — 2.5 mi
• Roots of Rock 'n' Roll — 3.0 mi
• Eureka School — 3.0 mi
• St. Paul Methodist Church — 3.1 mi