Gulfport-Harrison County Public Library

A Carnegie library built in 1916, listed on the National Register, and still standing — a fact worth noting on a coast where "still standing" is an achievement. The Gulfport-Harrison County Public Library on 15th Street outlasted Hurricane Camille in 1969. It outlasted Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It now houses the Local History and Genealogy Collection, the most comprehensive photographic archive of the Harrison County shoreline. If you want to see what the coast looked like before the storms reshaped it — the hotels, the docks, the beaches, the buildings that didn't make it — this is where the evidence lives. The collection documents not just what was lost, but what was built in the first place: the lumber port that made Gulfport the largest lumber export city in the United States by 1906, the grand hotels of the early 20th century, the fishing communities, the coastline before the casinos. The library serves as a genealogical research center. Free. Check library hours before you go.