Bay Saint Louis, MS (BAS)

1928 Depot Way
Bay St. Louis, MS 39520

Station Hours

Annual Ticket Revenue (FY 2024): N/A
Annual Station Ridership (FY 2024): N/A

• Ownerships
• Routes Served
• Contact
• Local Community Links

• Facility Ownership: City of Bay St. Louis
• Parking Lot Ownership: City of Bay St. Louis
• Platform Ownership: CSX Transportation (CSXT)
• Track Ownership: CSX Transportation (CSXT)

• Amtrak Mardi Gras Service

Todd Stennis
Regional Contact
governmentaffairsnol@amtrak.com
For information about Amtrak fares and schedules, please visit Amtrak.com or call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245).

• City of Bay Saint Louis
• Hancock County Tourism & Visitor Center
• Alice Moseley Folk Art Museum
• Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Area

Located southwest of downtown and just a few blocks from the shore of the Mississippi Sound, the Amtrak station consists of a concrete platform and open air shelter adjacent to the former Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N) depot, an exuberant Spanish Revival building constructed in 1929. This historic structure, restored by the city in the 1990s, now houses the Hancock County Tourism Bureau, the Bay Saint Louis Cultural Affairs Office, Mardi Gras Museum, Alice Moseley Folk Art Museum and the Depot Visitors Center.  

Fronting the depot to the south is a park boasting walking paths lined with benches, pavilions used for concerts and events, and palms and other mature trees that offer welcome shade during the warmer months. 

Amtrak restored passenger rail service to Bay Saint Louis via the Amtrak Mardi Gras Service (New Orleans-Mobile, Ala.) on August 18, 2025. The service name references the long history of Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, Mobile and the communities of coastal Mississippi. Amtrak operates this service under contracts with the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, financial support by the City of Mobile and with the long-time backing of the Southern Rail Commission, an interstate compact working on behalf of the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation support operating expenses for this route and are funding improvements for freight and Amtrak trains.    

At New Orleans, the Amtrak Mardi Gras Service will allow same-day connections in both directions daily to the famed City of New Orleans (New Orleans-Memphis-Chicago), as well as next-day connections to the Crescent (New Orleans-Atlanta-New York) and Sunset Limited  (New Orleans-Houston-Tucson-Los Angeles). 

Amtrak formerly served Bay St. Louis via the Gulf Coast Limited (New Orleans-Mobile) from April 1984 to January 1985. The states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana funded this temporary service to promote regional tourism tied to the Louisiana World Exposition held in New Orleans. The service was later revived from June 1996 through March 1997 using state and federal funds. 

The community was also served by the Sunset Limited from March 1993 until August 2005, when this Los Angeles-New Orleans train was extended east to Miami, and subsequently truncated to Orlando. Amtrak halted service east of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, which severely damaged the region’s rail infrastructure. 

Mississippi was home to the Choctaw and Chickasaw peoples when the first Europeans – mainly the French – began exploring the area in the mid-17th century. The Choctaw occupied the lower two thirds of present-day Mississippi while the Chickasaw were to the north. Both peoples lived in networks of villages and pursued agriculture as well as hunting to meet their needs. 

Rene-Robert, Cavalier de La Salle, claimed present-day Mississippi – and other lands drained by the Mississippi River – for France in 1682. This large territory was referred to as “Louisiana” in honor of King Louis XIV. Initial settlements were limited to areas along the Gulf Coast and the lower Mississippi River. Fort Maurepas, the first European settlement in Mississippi, and the first capital of French Louisiana, was established at Biloxi Bay in 1699.  

The community of Bay Saint Louis, located on a peninsula bounded by the Jourdan River to the north, St. Louis Bay to the east and the Mississippi Sound to the south, was settled by Europeans in December 1699 when Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, had a fort constructed on the bluffs along the bay. In time, Bay Saint Louis and other early settlements to the east along the Gulf of America were eclipsed by the founding of New Orleans with its deep-water port.  

Defeated by Great Britain during the French and Indian War, France lost control of Louisiana in 1763. Spain gained possession of the French territory west of the Mississippi River, including New Orleans, while Britain took control of land to the east. The latter region subsequently fell under Spanish and then American control in 1795. That year, the United States and Spain signed a treaty establishing the border of Spanish Florida – which included present-day Florida and the coastal regions of Mississippi and Alabama. The treaty allowed American settlement to proceed in central Mississippi and permitted Americans free navigation of the Mississippi River. 

The Mississippi Territory was organized in 1798. By 1812, when the United States annexed the coastal regions disputed by Spain, the territory had grown to include most of present-day Mississippi and Alabama. The western half became the state of Mississippi in 1817, with the east admitted as the state of Alabama two years later. The continuing dispute with Spain over the coastal areas was eventually settled under the Onís-Adams Treaty of 1819, by which Spain also ceded present-day Florida. 

During the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain, a naval battle took place in 1814 around the bluffs of Bay Saint Louis and in the Mississippi Sound. While a loss to the Americans, the action allowed General Andrew Jackson time to gather more troops and complete fortifications for the defense at Chalmette, Louisiana – the Battle of New Orleans – where victory over the British was achieved on January 8, 1815.  

Advancing American settlement following the war also led to conflict with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, who were pressured to cede their lands in central and northern Mississippi. In the 1820s, a new state law cancelled American Indian land claims and gave the state jurisdiction over those lands. This was followed by the signing of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 by President Andrew Jackson. It allowed the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi River to American Indian peoples in exchange for lands within state borders. 

These federal and state actions culminated in the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, in which the Choctaw gave up their remaining lands and agreed to move to what is now Oklahoma; the Chickasaw ceded their northern Mississippi lands two years later. 

Development of coastal Mississippi was boosted during this time by the construction of a road from the Pearl River – the border between Louisiana and Mississippi – and Bay Saint Louis. Steamboat service then followed, connecting the Gulf ports to one another and New Orleans. These new transportation routes spurred local industries including timber harvesting – primarily yellow pine – and turpentine production. They also helped make Bay Saint Louis a popular summer resort for wealthy New Orleanians looking to escape the sweltering heat of the Crescent City, as well as planters from the inland Natchez area. 

Bay Saint Louis’ reputation as a resort community only grew throughout the 19th century, especially with the arrival of the railroad after the Civil War. As it became connected to the wider national rail network, the town started to attract winter visitors, too. Northerners seeking a warmer winter climate enjoyed the Gulf Coast for its warm breezes and profusion of semi-tropical trees and plants, including live oaks, southern magnolias and saw-palmettos. Northeast of the Amtrak station, grand houses fronting the water on North Beach Boulevard recall the town’s heyday as a resort center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The winter season generally lasted from November to May, and the summer season from June to October. 

Bay Saint Louis entered the railroad era with the arrival of the New Orleans, Mobile & Chattanooga Railroad (NOM&C), which began regular passenger and freight service on November 21, 1870. Planned to connect New Orleans and Mobile via the coast, the railroad would be 140 miles long. Construction got underway in 1869 and took 20 months; although relatively short, the line presented the builders with a number of obstacles, including marshy terrain and rivers and bays that needed to be bridged – including St. Louis Bay.  

Another problem was shipworms, which bored into and weakened the wood pilings supporting the track in marshy areas, requiring the NOM&C to rebuild sections of the railroad. The company soon found a solution to better preserve their wood – infusing it with creosote, which waterproofed the pilings and repelled shipworms and insects. 

Once the railroad had reached New Orleans, the company signaled its intention for further westward expansion by changing its name to the New Orleans, Mobile & Texas Railway Company, but that ambition was never realized in part due to the cost of the rebuilding efforts. The railroad was purchased and subsumed into the Louisville & Nashville Railroad (L&N) in 1881. 

What had once been an 18-hour trip by steamboat from New Orleans to Mobile now took just five hours by rail – making the region more accessible for travelers and business. The railroad allowed seafood such as shrimp and oysters to be canned or iced for shipment to larger cities, along with agricultural products including vegetables and pecans.  

Bay Saint Louis’ previous railroad depot opened in 1876. The two-story wood frame structure, clad in wood siding, included a long porch on the trackside elevation. Stickwork, popular in the Victorian period, featured in the roof’s cross gables. The building was part of a larger complex that included a railyard and roundhouse. In time, the area attracted businesses that relied on the railroad to ship their goods, including a lumber warehouse, and ice, light and bottling works. A commercial strip known as “Depot Row” also developed opposite the station along Blaize Avenue. 

This railroad depot served the community until it was destroyed by fire in February 1928. For some civic boosters, this may have been a blessing in disguise, as they had come to believe the old depot no longer fit the aspirations of their thriving city, which welcomed people from near and far to enjoy its quiet beauty and reinvigorating sea air.  

The L&N responded by building the city an impressive new facility in keeping with the latest architectural fashions. As built, the western portion of the two-story building housed the passenger functions such as waiting rooms and ticket desks, while the eastern portion was the baggage and freight area where packages and other deliveries were held for shipment on the rails. This section has wide, tall doors to allow for the passage of carts laden with crates and packages, and the small first floor windows, placed high on the wall, offered further security for the valuables inside. 

On the facade, the main entryway and ends of the building are highlighted with undulating parapets. Grouped windows have round and Moorish-Indian arches, while the entryway surround is embellished with escudos (shields) and decorative scrollwork – features all typical of the romantic tendencies associated with Spanish Revival design. Arches, windowsills and other details are picked out in a vibrant red-orange, offering a bold contrast to the white stuccoed walls. 

Hundreds of townspeople gathered on the evening of April 20, 1929, to dedicate the building. They toured the station and enjoyed refreshments while listening to music from an orchestra. 

The depot remained in active use by the L&N through April 30, 1971, when the Pan-American (Cincinnati-New Orleans) made its last run. With the start of Amtrak operations the following day, May 1, the new passenger rail service provider decided not to include this coastal route in its network map. Eventually, the shuttered depot would fall into disrepair until purchased by the city in 1991 and redeveloped to house offices. 

In 1965, NASA and the National Space Technology Laboratory – renamed the John C. Stennis Space Center in 1988 – brought prosperity to Hancock County with new employment opportunities. All main rocket engines are test fired at this location. It is the nation’s largest rocket propulsion test site, serving the public and commercial sectors. In its early days, the center tested all Saturn V first and second stages for the Apollo program that sent Americans to the moon. The center was later used for space shuttle main engine testing from 1975 to 2009. 

After Hurricane Camille blasted the town in 1969, the community thought it could survive anything. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore with 38-foot waves at Bay Saint Louis, sweeping almost everything away; beachfront homes and business crumpled like paper models under the onslaught. The destruction included the loss of historic resources like the Old Spanish Customs House on Beach Avenue, constructed in 1787, which was believed to be the oldest structure then standing in the city. Many years of cleanup and redevelopment followed, including construction of a new seawall. 

Today, the Stennis Space Center remains one of the area’s largest employers, and the city – as it has done for generations – continues to welcome visitors looking to enjoy a relaxing time along the Gulf Coast. 

The Amtrak Mardi Gras Service is financed in part through funds made available by the states of Louisiana and Mississippi and the City of Mobile, Alabama.

Platform only (no shelter)