The Resort Coast — When New Orleans Went to Mississippi

The Louisville & Nashville Railroad opened this corridor in 1870, and within a decade, resort hotels lined Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis. New Orleans families — French-speaking, Catholic, built on levees — came by rail for months at a time. The Edgewater Gulf held 400 rooms. The Buena Vista operated a casino before the state made gambling legal anywhere. The relationship between the city and this stretch of Mississippi Sound is older than either skyline. Interstate 10 opened in the 1960s and redirected the traffic to Florida. The grand hotels closed one by one. The coast became what gets left behind when the highway goes somewhere else. The casinos returned in 1992, legal this time, and rewrote the economy. Amtrak restored passenger service in 2025. The train runs the same route the L&N laid 155 years ago. The reason to go hasn't changed: New Orleans still needs somewhere to go when the heat locks in, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast remains where it has always been — close enough to leave, far enough to breathe.