Biloxi's flag is understated: midnight blue with the municipal logo, a sailboat silhouette and the words "Biloxi, Mississippi" in white letters. Nothing exuberant. Yet Biloxi carries within it one of the most dramatic stories of the Gulf of Mexico.
Biloxi is one of the oldest American cities. Fort Maurepas, founded in 1699 by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, is the first permanent capital of French Louisiana – long before New Orleans. For decades, this coast was the heart of the French presence in North America, a maritime trading post linking the Caribbean, Canada and the mother country. The very name "Biloxi" comes from the Biloxi people, a tribe with a rare language.
The shrimp and oyster industry employed thousands of immigrants – Vietnamese, Croatian, Sicilian – who made the Gulf a unique maritime melting pot.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck Biloxi with unbelievable violence. The storm generated a 25-to-30-foot surge that erased the waterfront. 53 people died in the city. Entire neighborhoods vanished. The casinos that had revitalized the local economy in the 1990s were wrecked or devastated. Reconstruction took a decade. The blue flag flies over a city that starts over, once again.