Bay St. Louis Station: The Spanish Revival Depot That Lost Its Train

The Louisville and Nashville Railroad built its Bay Saint Louis depot in nineteen twenty-nine, opening it that spring. It served the Pan-American passenger service between Cincinnati and New Orleans for four decades. When Amtrak launched on May first, nineteen seventy-one, the coastal Mississippi route was dropped from the new system and the depot fell silent.

The city later took over the building. Decades later, passenger rail returned to the Gulf Coast, and Bay Saint Louis is among the stops on the revived Mardi Gras Service running between New Orleans and Mobile.