Keesler Air Force Base has been training military personnel in Biloxi since 1941, when the Army Air Corps built it on the site of a municipal golf course. It was named for 2nd Lieutenant Samuel Keesler Jr., a Greenwood, Mississippi native killed in aerial combat over France in 1918. During World War II, the base trained tens of thousands of aircraft mechanics and B-24 bomber crews. After the war, Keesler became the Air Force's primary electronics and communications training center — a role it still holds. The base is one of Biloxi's largest employers, and its personnel are woven into the city's economy, neighborhoods, and restaurants in ways that most visitors never see. Katrina devastated the base in 2005 — nearly every building was damaged — but it was rebuilt and operational within months. The military presence on the Mississippi coast predates the casinos, the shrimping industry's peak, and the resort era. Keesler is the institutional constant that has outlasted every reinvention of the beachfront economy.