Coast Chronicles: Is our ‘Coast’ three counties or six?

Is the Mississippi Gulf Coast three counties or six?

The answer depends on your information source, your gut feeling, but more importantly on who taught you local history.

The land that is our Coast today began as only two large counties, Hancock and Jackson. Together they encompassed coastal characteristics in their southern halves and pineywoods essentials in their northern halves.

Their northern boundaries are the 31st Parallel, and that creates a very short, stubby and, not surprisingly, seldom recognized Mississippi Panhandle.

Chunks of the original Hancock and Jackson were later cut out to create a total of six counties within this panhandle, with the additional names of Harrison, Stone, George and Pearl River.

In the beginning of this multi-county creation story, Hancock and Jackson are born Dec. 18, 1812. The land was carved out of the large Mobile District, which had a confusing history of claimed ownership by assorted European countries – England, France and Spain – and eventually the United States.

In May of the creation year, the expansionist United States annexed the Mobile District which at the time was then claimed by Spain as part of its Spanish West Florida colony. The U.S., however, declared the land between the Perdido River and Pearl River was part of its earlier Louisiana Purchase, insisting Spain had no claim to this part of the Mobile District.

As for timing, the annexation came just before the War of 1812 between England and the U.S.

If you’re having trouble pulling together the historic threads, it’s helpful to know Spain and England are allies at this time, Spain soon militarily surrenders at Mobile, and the War of 1812 lasts two years and eight months, ending with no decisive winner and a peace treaty that returns the pre-war borders.

Try to imagine how the few diverse settlers – estimated at less than 1,000 people – already living in the newly formed Jackson and Hancock counties felt about being part of the U.S. They would soon be joined by settlers seeking land and a living in this American expansionism movement.

The first county asunder occurred in 1841 when chunks of Hancock and Jackson combined to become Harrison County. In 1890 a western section of Hancock was cut away to help create Pearl River County, and in 1910 north Jackson County broke away to form George. The final cut was made in 1916 when the northern half of Harrison became Stone County.

The original land of Mississippi’s two southern-most counties is now divided into six, with three seacoast counties and three pineywoods counties. This historic makeup, some thinking goes, should be what we call the Mississippi Gulf Coast – a coming together of the blue sea and the green sea.

The late Charles L. Sullivan, local historian and college professor who died in 2023, taught me and thousands of others to think of coastal Mississippi as much more than the amenities found near waterfronts that lured first the ingenious peoples and then the French in 1699.

Pineywoods “gold” – the coveted giant virgin yellow pine trees– was actually the Coast’s first big economic booster. These trees were harvested and sent out of newly built local ports to Europe or on newly laid rails to the rest of the country. The cut-over lands, combined with a mild winter climate, then lead to thriving agriculture industries.

Meanwhile, the bounty of the seas – shrimp, oysters, crabs – began to be harvested. The Coast factories could canned both seafood and vegetables grown on the cut-over land.

To be expected, the mild climate and beauty of the region lured tourists, more residents and entrepreneurs, and created development of what were called the original Six Sisters – Shieldsboro (today’s Bay St. Louis), Pass Christian, Mississippi City (later incorporated into Gulfport), Biloxi, Ocean Springs and Pascagoula.

This region was destined for such growth, sandwiched as it is between the two ever-growing metropolitan areas of New Orleans and Mobile. The Six Sisters soon found themselves with a growing number of cousins, among them Long Beach, Perkinston, D’Iberville, Picayune, Lucedale, Gautier, Waveland.

Even several really bad hurricanes, the kind that knock down the scaffolding of civilization for awhile, have not killed the population growth, the diverse businesses and the tourism lures that keep these six counties humming and updating.

We didn’t understand the big-picture and inter-play of our assorted histories of the six developing counties until “The Mississippi Gulf Coast: Portrait of a People” was published in the late 1980s. Charlie Sullivan, the primary writer of the book, had an amazing knack to make history understandable and relevant to today through his prolific writings and lectures.

He’s the one who first described the Mississippi Gulf Coast as the coming together of the green sea and the blue sea. He taught us that our Coast began with two very large counties of Hancock and Jackson, with parts later sheered off to become Harrison, Stone, George and Pearl River.

Today, these six are competitive and diverse in population numbers, cultures, festivals, family backgrounds, tourism, industry and business offerings.

Yet, a common thread of history and their Panhandle togetherness continue to weave the six into one identifiable region. Not surprisingly, Sullivan also distinguished the Mississippi Panhandle but he never succeeded in getting the rest of the nation, even many on the Coast, to acknowledge its existence. Google “U.S. states with panhandles” today and 10 panhandles will come up, but none in this state.

So, again, I ask: Is the Mississippi Gulf Coast three counties or six?

Write-ups, both past and present, about the Coast are mixed. Curious, I checked Wikipedia, the free online global encyclopedia for an entry on “Mississippi Gulf Coast.” Part of that entry explains:

“At the state’s creation, Hancock and Jackson were the only two counties to make up this region. However, before the end of the first centennial, subdivisions in the counties led to the formation of Harrison County, as well as the pineywoods counties of Pearl River, Stone and George.”

For transparency (and with a smile on my face!) I point out that Wikipedia lists a 2017 article I wrote as one of the 10 sources it used for the Coast entry.

I suspect historians, whether locally grown or academically bred, and assorted Coast promoters and influencers will forever debate this conundrum.

The rest of us will form opinions from our experiences, from what we’ve heard and read, from what we’ve been taught, and maybe, just maybe, from putting some of our own gray matter to work.

So, are we three counties or six?

My reasoning comes from Sullivan’s influence and more than four decades of writing these Gulf Coast Chronicles: Two original counties became six under the umbrella designation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

At this point, my answer is six. Yours?

Kat Bergeron, an award-winning veteran reporter and feature writer who specializes in Gulf Coast history and sense of place, is retired from the Sun Herald. She writes this Gulf Coast Chronicles column as a freelance correspondent. Reach her at:

BergeronKat@gmail.com

Or, at Southern Possum Tales, P.O. Box 33, Barboursville, VA 22923