Crosby Arboretum

The Crosby Arboretum belongs to the timber story of Pearl River County. Picayune became a railroad center for the South Mississippi pine economy, and in 1916 L. O. Crosby Sr. and colleagues organized the Goodyear Yellow Pine Company, which made the Rosa mill a major employer and later became part of Crosby Forest Products. The arboretum honors L. O. Crosby Jr., who lived from 1907 to 1978, and it is affiliated with Mississippi State University. Its mission is to preserve and show the plants native to the Pearl River drainage basin.

It does that with three habitats on a 104-acre interpretive site: a savanna, a woodland and an aquatic exhibit. The university also maintains about 700 acres of natural areas off-site for study, in Pearl River, Hancock and Lamar counties. The off-site areas include hillside bogs and savannas with pitcher plants and orchids, and the arboretum uses prescribed burns to manage its own.

The building to see is Pinecote Pavilion, designed by E. Fay Jones, the Arkansas architect best known for Thorncrown Chapel. Its latticed roof beams evoke the canopy of the trees beside the pond, and the structure seems to dissolve into the surrounding forest. The pavilion was a gift of Lynn and Stewart Gammill in memory of L. O. Crosby Jr. and holds exhibition and teaching space. Check the hours before you drive, since it is closed Sundays and Mondays.