Like any city, there are several little sub-cities and towns all over the place on the Coast. Biloxi has Woolmarket and d’Iberville, Gulfport has Orange Grove and Lyman, and Ocean Springs has St. Martin, Gautier, and Gulf Hills or Bayou Puerto, as it used to be known.
Gulf Hills is mostly just known as a subdivision now, though it’s a large one. It’s located right on the Back Bay and pretty much 99% of Gulf Hills residents are very wealthy.
I think the reason that Gulf Hills was turned into a wealthy neighborhood to begin with was because of the arrival of the Gulf Hills Resort. According to a little article on Wiki I found:
An event, which permanently changed the history and culture of Bayou-Puerto and St. Martin, occurred as a result of the land boom of the mid-1920s. A group of investors from Chicago and New York enamored with the natural beauty, temperate climate, and propinquity via rail to the "snow birds" of the Midwest, chose an area in eastern St. Martin along and at the mouth of Old Fort Bayou and Bayou Puerto, to build a winter resort. It was called Gulf Hills because small tributaries and intermittent streams flowing into Old Fort Bayou and Bayou Puerto have dissected the topography in the area creating a somewhat rugose topography.
Harvey W. Braniger (1875-1953), a native of Morning Sun, Iowa and developer of Ivanhoe at Chicago, is generally considered the founder of Gulf Hills. A charter of incorporation was issued for Gulf Hills by the State of Mississippi on September 15, 1925. (The Jackson County Times, September 19, 1925, p. 2)[2]
The Chicago developers envisioned selling three-acre homesites to wealthy northerners who would come to escape winter's cold blasts, then peacefully retire here.
The Branigars hosted a gala early January 1927 opening of Gulf Hills on No. 1 tee. Billed as the golf city of the Gulf Coast, Gulf Hills covered 667 acres (2.7 km2) with 249 of them dedicated as fairways, parks, playgrounds and waterways. Of the ten miles (16 km) of narrow roadways, four of them were waterfront and seven, on the golf course.
The Depression put the skids to the program. By the end of World War II, there were only 40 homes. By the 1950s, homes were being built again in Gulf Hills. Activity heightened in the 1960s and continued into the 1980s.
The Gulf Hills Inn was revitalized by renaming it Gulf Hills Dude Ranch and creating a western atmosphere. Gulf Hills became a popular place with nationwide recognition. Stars like Judy Garland, Elvis Presley and honeymooning Mary Ann Mobley and Gary Collings adopted the resort as a retreat. Until the 1970s, Mafia bosses would annually gather for business and pleasure. They were so unobtrusive and looked like other golfing businessmen that few people realized they were there. [3]
Presently most people live in Gulf Hills all year round not just in the winter, and it is no longer only for the wealthy. A diverse group now occupies this once resort community. Although, most people that live in the quiet little community of Gulf Hills are wealthy or considered, "old money."
The caretakers and employees I met the night I took these photos were able or corroborate the story that the resort was frequented by mob bosses and Elvis Presley. They also said that the mobs would hang out at the resort because it was so secluded from the rest of the city, and that they would normally station their body guards and local police officers around the property as a means of protection.
When I asked them about the rumors that the hotel and grounds were haunted, they didn’t even bat an eyelash before telling me that the place was practically swarming with ghosts and restless spirits. Not only does the spirit of a recently-deceased caretaker (apparently he had worked at the resort for decades and enjoys switching the lights on and off and making the phone ring) call the place home, but it’s not unusual to feel the presence of Elvis and even Al Capone, who they said was also a frequent visitor. They told me that Elvis tended to float around the ballrooms and pay special attention to pretty girls, where Capone liked to hang out in the basement/wine cellar (don’t ask me how they managed to put a basement in a resort so close to sea level).
Residual hauntings maybe? Anyway, click on the picture below to see the photos.
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| Gulf Hills Resort |
There are several local legends about time that Al Capone spent on the Coast. Some say that he stayed in a house in North Ocean Springs/Vancleave and the owner of the building is trying to demolish it while Mayor Connie Moran is trying to save it. To read about it, click here.
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