DEL.ICIO.USFROM ATLANTA TO ... BILOXI, MISS.
Betting on Biloxi for a Gulf Coast getaway
The Austin American-Statesman
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
BILOXI, Miss. — On a sparkling, sunny day, this city is alive with optimism, its sky filled with cranes as new condos and casinos rise three and a half years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast.
There are still reminders of the struggle: some bare foundations and a scattering of what locals call “Katrina houses” — small, but sturdy frame homes built for those left homeless by the hurricane.
Helen Anders/ AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Biloxi, Miss., offers seafaring adventures in addition to casinos for tourists to enjoy.
Mississippi Coast gambling revenue is down only 2 percent from last year this time, so the industry is weathering the poor economy fairly well.
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But Biloxi is once again a good bet for tourists. New attractions are popping up, the beaches are clean and broad, restaurants are opening and a new Frank Gehry-designed art museum promises to be the architectural highlight of the Mississippi Coast when it opens in 2011.
Of course, Biloxi and nearby Gulfport are best known as gambling meccas, and gaming is an industry that, locally, isn’t suffering as much from the crippled economy. Mississippi Coast gambling revenue is down only 2 percent from last year at this time, a figure a lot of businesses across the nation would love to see.
During our visit, the gaming tables and slots were filled with visitors, most of whom appeared to be retirees trying to bolster their Dow-damaged retirement accounts. We joined, in a small-stakes way, at the Palace Casino Resort, where we were staying.
My husband enjoys the odd blackjack game, and the one he joined was odd enough to swiftly deprive him of $100. I’m intimidated by table games. I stuck to quarter video poker and made $20 last about an hour.
I never wait until I’m ahead to quit, though. Once my Andrew Jackson was eaten, I was off to go shrimping.
For about a year now, Mike and Brandy Moore have run an attraction that’s essentially a tourist sightseeing boat with a shrimping rig attached to the back. Tourists can take an hour and a half trip close to the shore to learn about shrimping for only $15.
The best part: We didn’t have to do any actual shrimping ourselves. Shrimping is a difficult, smelly business, and shrimpers generally go out to sea for months at a time. This was a lot better.
As we pulled out of the harbor, Moore warned us that our net probably wouldn’t catch much shrimp since it was a cold day early in the year. The smallest shrimp that can be kept are 68-count, Moore said. That means there are 68 in a pound.
We did a 20-minute drag, then Moore dumped the net. In it were two little shrimp, a tiny speckled trout, a harvest fish, half a dozen jellyfish (one of which stung Moore), a small squid, an anchovy and a rather large female blue crab.
Dinner! No, not really. Moore placed all the sea creatures in a small aquarium, except for the jellyfish, which were dumped overboard. (The squid took exception to the arrival of the crab and emitted a small cloud of ink.) Once we got back to the marina, after the gulls left us alone, Moore released them back to the Gulf of Mexico.
The shrimp tour is fun and a good break from gambling. Another good one is to round up some friends and charter a sail on a real schooner.
Capt. Brandon Boudreaux, who grew up in Biloxi, pilots the two tall-masters schooners that can be chartered for 2 1/2, 4 or 8 hours. Boudreaux sometimes does $25 walk-on cruises, but most of his business is charters, which start at $375 for 20 people for 2 1/2 hours. He also rents out his Schooner Pier for special events.
A maritime museum, trashed by Katrina, is being rebuilt across the street from Schooner Pier and is expected to open in 2010.
Speaking of schooners, Ole Biloxi Schooner is the restaurant we chose for lunch. My husband, John, loved his crab burger. He’d been hungry for one since he ate them routinely during a stay at Biloxi’s Keesler Air Force Base many decades ago.
I had a fried fish plate that was good, too. The former Schooner building, a block from the gulf, was ripped apart by Katrina. This is a new location in a small storefront downtown. It’s a good, inexpensive lunch spot.
If you’re in the mood for something fancier, try Mary Mahoney’s Old French House. It’s expensive, but the locals love it. Of course, there are also the casino buffets — a pretty good value if you can eat a lot.
After lunch, we drove down Beach Boulevard, also known as U.S. 90, past some dead live oak trees that were being chainsawed into the shape of roosting pelicans. Dozens of these artworks are all over Biloxi, created by Marlin Miller of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., and Mississippi chainsaw artist Dayton Scoggins.
Just off Beach Boulevard stand four tall, shiny, aluminum pods that have some of the locals scratching their heads. They’re the starting point for an amazing new five-building museum complex designed by Frank Gehry, who designed Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The complex will become the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art and will house the work of George Ohr, a 19th-century inventive potter who proclaimed his own works to be “unequaled, undisputed, unrivaled.” Yes, he was eccentric and often called the Mad Potter of Biloxi, but his abstract pots and unusual glazes truly are unusual and highly regarded in the art world.
Work on the museum complex, which will include 25,000 square feet of gallery space, was begun before Katrina, which trashed it.
“We were 11 months from opening, and a casino barge broke loose and tore it all apart,” said Julie Gustafson, the museum’s development manager. So the work started again three years ago. Parts of the museum are scheduled to open in 2011.
The pods and other buildings are being constructed within the live oak trees that have long stood on the property.
“It was designed to dance with the trees,” Gustafson said.
In addition to showcasing Ohr’s work, the museum complex will have a center for ceramics, an African-American art gallery and an interpretive center. (The O’Keefe in the name is Jeremiah O’Keefe, who donated $1 million to get the museum project started.)
For the moment, some examples of Ohr’s work are housed in a small building, the Glenn L. Swetman House (built around 1927), about a mile away.
Further west on U.S. 90, Beauvoir, the home of Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis, is once again open while its restoration continues. Katrina damaged 25 percent of the building and 40 percent of artifacts.
We enjoyed a tour of the modest-sized house (although its interior does have some showy components, for its time, such as rounded ceiling corners). The tour focuses on Beauvoir’s original owners and doesn’t talk at all about Davis.
There’s a huge aura of the Confederacy, though, in the gift shop, which is packed to the gills with stuff festooned with the Stars and Bars.
At the end of the day, we wanted to try our hand at gambling one more time. We stopped at Harrah’s Grand Biloxi Casino, where my husband gave roulette a spin. He lost.
I went back to my video poker machines, although I had trouble finding a 25-cent one. Finally, I parked myself at an unfamiliar video poker machine with lots of bells, whistles, options and fancy bonus doodads. I quickly pulled four of a kind, punched blindly at the bonus buttons (I had no idea what the objective was) and wound up winning $126.
That’s a big day for me in the casinos. Time to go home.
If you go
Casinos: Palace Casino Resort, 158 Howard Ave., 800-725-2239; Harrah’s Grand Biloxi Casino, 265 Beach Blvd., 800-946-2496.
Food: Ole Biloxi Schooner, 871 Howard Ave., 228-435-8071; Mary Mahoney’s Old French House, 116 Rue Magnolia, 228-374-0163.
Fun: Biloxi Shrimping Trip, Small Craft Harbor, 693 Beach Blvd., 228-385-1182; Biloxi Schooner Tours, Point Cadet Marina, U.S. 90, 228-435-6320; Beauvoir, 2244 Beach Blvd., 228-388-4400.
Tourism information: 888-467-4853, www.gulfcoast.org. For the Ohr-O’Keefe museum: www.georgeohr.org.
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