Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Center

Mary C. O'Keefe was born in Ocean Springs in 1893 and graduated from Newcomb College in 1913. She came home in 1927 to teach English in the new school that now bears her name, and in 1929 she became superintendent, described as the first woman in Mississippi to hold that post. Under her the elementary department ranked highest in the state in 1933, and the high school became fully accredited. She retired before the 1945 school year and died in 1980. The city dedicated the renovated building as a cultural center in 1999.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Walter Anderson Museum of Art — 0.5 mi
  A museum in downtown Ocean Springs built around the artist who rowed to Horn Island to paint, with his 1952 murals of Iberville's 1699 landing and the Seven Climates of the town.
• Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum — 2.7 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.
• Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art — 3.4 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 Lighthouse — 5.0 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.

More markers nearby

• Carter-Calloway House — 0.2 mi
• Marble Springs — 0.4 mi
• Ocean Springs — 0.8 mi
• Charnley-Norwood House (Bon Silene) — 1.5 mi