The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1908-08-22

4 Rottling Works, A. L. Stokoe. proprie-
tor, supplies electric lights and ice te
the town. Its capacity for ice is Is tons
. day.
| Two packing houses, the Dunbar and
the Peerless Packing Companies, are
located here and pack oysters, shrimp
crabs, fruits and vegetables in their sea-
son, shipping all over the country.
Within three miles of the bay are the
large saw mill plants of the Bay Lum-
Der Co., Mrs. X. Edwards & Sons and
Conrad Sick, engaged in making pine
lumber, for the town is backed by pine
forests stretching away for miles. Ad-
jacent to it and intersected by the water
ways from the Bay of St. Louis, there
lie from 1000 to 10000 acres Of long
leaf yellow pine; the entire county OF
Hancock is practically solid body OF
timber, though the sawmills have cut a
scattered portion of it. The land in
this section has clay subsoil, and it
promises for the near future trucking
and farming industry of large propor-
tions, when cleared up by the mills.
This land was open government land
and has been largely homesteaded and
is now entered or owned in patches of
not over leo acres, while there are some
few tracts of considerable extent that
are owned by sawmill and investment
interests. Naval stores form one OF the
greatest industries of the county. Much
of the lumber is under turpentine, two
large companies operating near here.
Turpentine Interests in this county
and adjacent mainly to the waterways
referred to own and control about IS 900
acres of sawmill timber and good mill
of 10000 feet daily capacity, situated in
a location affording more reasonable
logging cost than would be possible by
tram road. The government is now
dredging the bars of Bay st. Louis at
the mouths of Wolf and Jordan rivers,
opening the way for small schooners
to ply these waters, and affording an
outlet to the gulf for the already estab-
lished coastwise trade with New Orleans
and Gulfport.
Bay st. Louis is the county seat of
Hancock County, the courthouse being
located here. A handsome brick city
hall is owned by the town, of which
CASTOR G. Gardebled is the new mayor,
a live, progressive, self-made man, who
has taken over the city affairs with the
intention of getting the old town in line
with the upward movement OF the South.
In schools the Bay is well equipped.
A Catholic town, it has numerous scho-
lastic institutions for those of this de-
nomination, and hundreds Of young
people from all over the Southern States
come here to attend the convent and
college; but the public high sch ool is
taking precedence at present and has
265 children enrolled out of about $50
total enrolment in the town. Four
teachers, under Robert 8. Bailey, are
doing fine work here, introducing many
new features in addition to the regular
work. The school carries ten grades.
Next year it will affiliate with the Uni
versity of Mississippi, it's pupils enter
ing the freshman class. The attend
ance has increased 80 per cent in the
last year. Good schools mean much to
incoming settlers, and this school at the
Bay is rapidly takiug it's place among
the best high schools of the State. Lite
rary societies. newspaper, workshops
for boys, gardening, music and free
hand drawing. basket ball, archery and
rifle practice are among the frills Prof.
Bailey has added to the school work.
He has accomplished wonders since
coming to the Bay and has no intention
of stopping until this school ful6lls all
his ideas of good free school.
Real estate at Bay st. Louis is active.
Property changes hands here every day.
It ranges from $15 to $50 per foot front
on the back streets. Beach business
property brings $50 to $40 foot front.
Drake and Smith are the official sur
veyora for the city and Hancock county.
A large, modern hotel would pay we'll
here. Its proximity to New Orleans,
climatic conditions, pure artesian water,
salt air and piney woods, together with
the scenic attractions, fishing, hunting,
boating and bathing ought to bring Bay
st. Louis to the forefront as resort.
It has great future, too, as truck
ing center. Truck farming is we'll un-
der way here; about 20 men are in the
business, with some 200 acres in culti-
vation. All are making success.
These truckers are mostly Italians; the
largest grower is A. Scafide, who has 40
acres inside the corporation which he
owns and operates, shipping carloads of
produce from this point:
"In 19O6,n said Mr.. Scafide, "I
planted patch of potatoes the first of
January and made good crop, and on
the same ground, April 15, made good
crop of cucumbers; then, on July 1, /
planted this same ground in sweet po-
tatoes. So, you see, three crops can be
raised in one season here.
"The soil is adapted to most any kind
Of gardening, in fact, about all kinds of
vegetables can be grown here success
fully. We make fine sugar cane. AS
to strawberries, there are none finer
grown than these about Bay st. Louis.