Pascagoula, Mississippi Pascagoula, Mississippi City of Pascagoula Location of Pascagoula, MS Location of Pascagoula, MS Pascagoula, Mississippi is positioned in the US Pascagoula, Mississippi - Pascagoula, Mississippi Website City of Pascagoula Pascagoula is a town/city in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States.
It is the principal town/city of the Pascagoula, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, as a part of the Gulfport Biloxi Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area.
Pascagoula is a primary industrial town/city of Mississippi, along the Gulf Coast.
Although the city's populace seemed to peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s as Cold War defense spending was at its height, Pascagoula experienced some new expansion and evolution in the years before Hurricane Katrina.
Today, Pascagoula is home to the state's biggest employer, Ingalls Shipbuilding, owned by Huntington Ingalls Industries.
Naval Station Pascagoula was positioned on Singing River Island, and was homeport to a several Navy warships, as well as a large Coast Guard contingent.
However, Naval Station Pascagoula was decommissioned as part of the 2005 BRAC recommendations and ceased operations in 2006.
The town/city is served by three airports: Mobile Regional Airport, which is positioned in close-by Mobile, Alabama; the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, about 40 miles (64 km) west of Pascagoula; and the Trent Lott International Airport, positioned inside Jackson County.
Pascagoula bay, early 18th century French map.
The name Pascagoula, which means "bread eater", is taken from a group of Native Americans found in villages along the Pascagoula River some distance above its mouth.
The first specified account comes from Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, younger brother of Iberville, whom the Pascagoula visited at Fort Maurepas in present-day Ocean Springs, shortly after it was settled and while the older brother was away in France.
The territory of the Biloxi citizens s seems to have ranged from the areas of what are now called Biloxi Bay to Bayou La Batre (Alabama) and twenty-five miles up the Pascagoula River, and then the Pascagoula citizens 's territory seems to have ranged between some distance north of there to the confluence of the Leaf and Chickasawhay rivers. The first pioneer of Pascagoula were Jean Baptiste Baudreau Dit Graveline, Joseph Simon De La Pointe and his aunt, the Madame Chaumont.
Local legend says the Pascagoula tribe chanted and waded hand-in-hand into the Pascagoula River, drowning together clean water turn into enslaved to or killed by an enemy tribe, the Biloxi.
It is said that on still summer and autumn evenings, the sad song of the Pascagoulas can still be heard near the river.
A view of a section of the Ingalls Shipbuilding Company showing various United States Navy ships under assembly in Pascagoula At one point, for seventy-four days in 1810, Pascagoula was a part of what was known as The Republic of West Florida. Pascagoula was incorporated as a village in 1892 and obtained town/city status in 1901.
Today's downtown Pascagoula used to be the town of Scranton, Mississippi (incorporated in 1870) until the two suburbs consolidated in 1912. Pascagoula has been home or host to many notable citizens , including the pirate Jean Lafitte; the continuing Copeland Gang; "Old Hickory" Andrew Jackson; General (later President) Zachary Taylor; Confederate General and Congressman David Emanuel Twiggs; Union Admiral David Farragut; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who is said to have penned "The Building of a Ship" while in Pascagoula (although his stay is more small-town folklore than truth); and Nobel Laureate in literature William Faulkner who is believed to have written "Mosquitoes" while summering in Pascagoula. The Nite Riders, also got their start in Pascagoula in the 1950s.
Pascagoula attained notoriety on October 11, 1973 when two small-town fishermen, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, claimed to have been abducted by aliens from a Pascagoula pier.
Pascagoula also attained national consideration in the 1980s, when novelty singer/songwriter Ray Stevens featured the town in his hit, "Mississippi Squirrel Revival." Stevens admits, though, that the song could have been set in any Southern town but the name Pascagoula easily rhymed with the word, hallelujah, which is heard incessantly in the song.
Houses leveled, gutted or flooded in Pascagoula by Hurricane Katrina On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina's 20-foot (6.1 m) storm surge devastated Pascagoula, much like Biloxi and Gulfport and the rest of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Katrina came ashore amid the high tide of 6:12 - AM, 2.1 ft (0.64 m) more. Nearly 92% of Pascagoula was flooded.
Due to the primary media focus on the plight of New Orleans and Biloxi-Gulfport in the aftermath of Katrina, many Pascagoula people have expressed feeling neglected or even forgotten following the storm.
Most Pascagoula inhabitants did not possess flood insurance, and many were required to put their homes on pilings before being given a permit to rebuild.
United States Navy officials announced that two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers that were under assembly at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems in Pascagoula had been damaged by the storm, as well as the Amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island.
Hurricane Katrina damaged over forty Mississippi libraries, flooding the Pascagoula Public Library, first floor, and causing mold in the building. In 2010, it was re-installed at the new Pascagoula postal service on Jackson Avenue. Pascagoula is positioned along Mississippi Sound, at the mouth of the Pascagoula River.
According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 18.2 square miles (47 km2), of which 15.2 square miles (39 km2) is territory and 3.0 square miles (7.8 km2) (16.74%) is water.
Pascagoula, Mississippi (right edge) is east of Gautier and south of Moss Point, along the Gulf of Mexico.
The Pascagoula Art Depot is a loggia for small-town artists.
Pascagoula's locale in Mississippi (red dot in lower right corner) According to census 2010 Pascagoula has highest percentage of Puerto Ricans in Mississippi.
The Pascagoula-Gautier School District serves Pascagoula.
Edgar Hull, co-found physician of Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans; born in Pascagoula in 1904 and died there in 1984. Harkey Jr., editor and publisher of the Pascagoula Chronicle; won the Pulitzer Prize for his courageous editorials devoted to the processes of law and reason amid the integration crisis in Mississippi in 1962.
Pascagoula appears in the video game Tom Clancy's End - War as a possible battlefield.
Pascagoula is the setting for Ray Stevens' novelty song "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" that reached #20 on Hot Country Singles (now Hot Country Songs) chart in 1984. Pascagoula is referenced in Hart of Dixie Season 2 Episode 10 Blue Christmas.[how?] Jimmy Buffett wrote and performs a song called "Pascagoula Run" "2005 NOAA Tide Predictions: Pascagoula, Mississippi Sound" (2005), tide on August 29, 2006, NOAA, web:NOAA-tide-tables.
"Mural returns to Pascagoula Post Office".
United States Enumeration Bureau.
Municipalities and communities of Jackson County, Mississippi, United States
Categories:
Cities in Mississippi - Cities in Jackson County, Mississippi - Pascagoula, Mississippi - County seats in Mississippi - Cities in Pascagoula urbane region - French-American culture in Mississippi - Populated coastal places in Mississippi
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