Pascagoula, MS (PAG)

Pascagoula is noted for numerous celebrations and festivals that take place throughout the year – including the Jackson County Fair and ‘Goula Cruise showcasing hundreds of classic cars.

505 Railroad Avenue
Pascagoula, MS 39567

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

Ownerships
Routes Served
Contact
Local Community Links

Facility Ownership: Pascagoula Redevelopment Authority
Parking Lot Ownership: Pascagoula Redevelopment Authority
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).

Pascagoula sits where the river of the same name flows into the Mississippi Sound, its meandering waters creating a delta of marshes, wetlands and islands that form an important habitat for a variety of animals, especially migrating birds. At 81 miles, the Pascagoula River is one of the longest natural, free running – unimpeded by dams – watercourses in the contiguous United States. The heart of the city, today an industrial center, lies on the east side of the river, from the sound north toward Krebs Lake. Oceangoing ships pass through the sound to reach the Gulf of America.

The Amtrak station, consisting of a concrete platform, is located downtown and less than two miles from the shore of the Mississippi Sound. It’s easily accessible from Interstate 90, which runs just a few blocks to the north. The platform sits adjacent to the former Louisville & Nashville Railroad depot, which was purchased by the city in 1974 and converted to commercial use.

Amtrak restored passenger rail service to Pascagoula 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 allows 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 Pascagoula 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.  

Pascagoula (meaning “bread eaters”) takes its name from a group of American Indians who lived in villages along the Pascagoula River. Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto first contacted them in 1540. Later, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, French Louisiana’s first governor, wrote of meeting them in 1700 when they visited Fort Maurepas. This post, established on the east side of Biloxi Bay in 1699, was the first European settlement in Mississippi.

In 1721, 300 French settlers arrived to colonize the area north of downtown Pascagoula – which became part of the Krebs plantation where corn, rice and cotton were cultivated. A complex with a protective palisade was built on the south shore of Chatahoula Lake (now Krebs Lake) under the direction of Sieur Joseph Simon de la Pointe. His daughter would later marry Hugo Ernestus Krebs, who immigrated to the region from Germany.

One of their most important legacies to the community is the LaPointe-Krebs House and Museum on the south shore of Krebs Lake. It’s a rare survivor from the city’s earliest days and is considered one of the oldest structures still standing in the Lower Mississippi River Valley. Built in sections from the 1750s to the 1790s, the oldest parts feature walls of tabby, a building material similar to concrete whose primary aggregate is shells – in this case, oyster shells – that were found easily at hand in the area. Tabby could be packed into forms to create walls. The house went through various remodelings over more than two-and-half centuries of ownership by the Krebs family.

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. 

Advancing American settlement following the War of 1812 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 early roads linking Louisiana and Mississippi, followed by steamboat service that connected gulf ports to one another and New Orleans. These new transportation routes spurred local industries along the coast, including timber harvesting – primarily yellow pine – and turpentine production.  

On November 21, 1870, coastal communities gained regular passenger and freight rail service with the arrival of the New Orleans, Mobile & Chattanooga Railroad (NOM&C). 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.  

Another problem was shipworms, which bored into and weakened the wood pilings that supported 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. To support this work, the railroad built the country’s first creosote treating plant in Pascagoula.

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.  

The arrival of the railroad strengthened Pascagoula’s position as a shipbuilding center and player in the lumber trade, which had been made possible by its river location and access to interior Mississippi forests. But the railroad also reoriented the center of the community. Prior to its construction, the heart of Pascagoula was located along the coast, where the river and sound meet. But the tracks, located to the north, acted as a new spine for development, giving rise to the community of Scranton around the new depot.

Commercial and residential buildings sprung up north and south of the tracks, with the commercial core on the southside. With the relocation of the county courthouse to Scranton in 1879, as well as various churches, the new town’s primacy was cemented. Scranton and Pascagoula would grow together, and in 1904 they merged under the name of “Pascagoula” with a population of approximately 4,000.

The current L&N passenger depot, on the southside of the tracks, dates to this merger year; a separate freight building was located across the tracks. Within a decade, the railroad also would landscape part of the adjacent right of way as a park that included walking paths, a fountain and a bandstand.

The passenger depot replaced an earlier one that was likely in the same area. Built to a standard design found in other cities served by the L&N, the current one-story wood frame building on a brick foundation is topped with a gable-on-hip roof punctuated by cross gables and gabled dormers with decorative finials. Deep eaves supported by large brackets protected customers from sun and inclement weather as they waited to board the train.

The exterior walls are covered in siding: the wainscot and frieze – the bottom and top fourths of the surface, respectively, have vertical beadboard – while the center half employs horizontal clapboard. This center band contains all the windows, many of which are in pairs. The clapboard and trim in the center section run around the structure, connecting the windows’ sills and lintels, emphasizing the depot’s horizontal orientation. Trackside, a projecting bay allowed the station manager to monitor activity along the platform and tracks.

Built during a time of widespread segregation in the United States, the depot had separate waiting rooms for use by white and African American passengers. They were physically separated by the railroad agent’s office and had separate entries to and from the street and platform. As built, from east to west, the depot included: the general waiting room, agent’s office, African American waiting room and baggage room. In 1918, the L&N added onto the building, resulting in the expansion of the two waiting rooms.

In the late 19th century, spurred by the railroad connections to regional and national markets, Pascagoula boasted a number of shipyards and sawmills along the river and became a leading lumber port on the gulf. What had once been a small fishing town serving the local area became a seafood exporter – fish, shrimp, oysters and other products of the gulf could be caught, picked and packed in ice for shipping to faraway destinations. In 1875, the U.S. Congress appropriated funds to improve the port facilities at Pascagoula, to include a lighthouse, customhouse and harbor dredging.

Shipbuilding expanded with the entry of the U.S. into World War I. The Dierks-Blodgett Shipbuilding Company and the International Shipbuilding Company both established shipyards along the river, but this growth proved short-lived and wound down with the end of the conflict. Also contributing to an economic downturn was the end of the lumber boom as a result of resource depletion. This was all compounded in 1921 by a pair of fires that destroyed parts of downtown.

Economic recovery took time and was cemented by the founding of Ingalls Shipbuilding in 1939. During World War II, its workforce manufactured nearly 100 troop and cargo ships for the U.S. Navy. Other Pascagoula shipbuilders and regional businesses like textile mills contributed to the war effort, and the U.S. Corps of Engineers maintained a shipyard to repair dredges, snag boats and other vessels to ensure smooth navigation along the coast.

As these enterprises scaled up to fulfill new war-related contracts, the demand for workers skyrocketed, and the city’s population jumped from about 4,000 to nearly 38,000 during the war years. To accommodate these newcomers, the city expanded eastward, away from the river. A young Elvis Presley would spend part of his childhood in Pascagoula while his father came south from Tupelo, Mississippi, to work at Ingalls.

Pascagoula played such an important role in the war effort that in 2022, the National Park Service designated it an “American World War II Heritage City.” This honor is only bestowed on one city per state. The city’s wartime transition from fishing community to industrial center is commemorated on the facade of the Jackson County Courthouse, completed in 1949. The streamline Art Deco building features two bas-reliefs on either side of the main entrance: one depicts men fishing with nets, while the other shows men carrying steel beams and welding, likely a reference to shipbuilding.

Ingalls and other shipbuilders and industrial concerns continued to benefit from defense spending in the Cold War era that defined international geopolitical relations in the latter half of the 20th century. In 2011, Ingalls became part of a new company called Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII). It combined Ingalls and the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Virginia, becoming the nation’s biggest shipbuilder and the largest employer in Mississippi. In Pascagoula, HII develops and builds guided missile destroyers, amphibious warships and National Security Cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard.

Pascagoula is also home to a Chevron refinery that, when opened in 1963, was considered the largest and most modern in the oil industry. Originally built to process about 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day, output has tripled due to subsequent expansion and modernization efforts. The complex manufactures motor gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel, as well as fuel oils such as liquefied petroleum gas, aviation gasoline and petroleum coke and sulfur, and oils used in lubricants.

Industrial growth was enabled by continued development of the city’s port facilities. To complement installations along the river harbor, the Bayou Casotte harbor was dredged and opened on the city’s eastern end in the 1950s; today it includes a terminal warehouse and deepwater berths.

As of 2024, Port Pascagoula – encompassing public and private terminals in the two harbors – processed approximately 32 million cargo tons annually, making it the number one port in the state. An important commodity today, as a century ago, is lumber.

Pascagoula’s extensive connections to the river, marshlands, gulf and ocean are explored at the Mississippi Shipbuilding and Maritime Center. Visitors can also view the Round Island Lighthouse a few blocks northeast of the Amtrak station. Built just before the Civil War, it once stood three miles off the coast on one of a chain of barrier islands that separate the Mississippi Sound from the Gulf of America. Standing 50 feet tall, its light was visible a dozen miles away, but it was eventually decommissioned in 1944. It continued its vigil over Round Island until it was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Georges in 1998. The remaining bricks and other elements were salvaged and brought to the mainland and reassembled, and today it is open for tours.

Throughout the year, Pascagoula is noted for numerous celebrations and festivals. As the county seat, it’s home to the Jackson County Fair each October, where visitors can enjoy games and rides, livestock exhibits, live entertainment and a variety of food – including ever-popular gumbo. That same month, classic car enthusiasts flock to the city for the ‘Goula Cruise. Walking through Beach Park overlooking the sound, participants can view hundreds of vehicles while enjoying live music and food and drink.

Pascagoula also attracts its fair share of Jimmy Buffet fans. The singer-songwriter was born here in 1946 and would immortalize his birthplace in the song “The Pascagoula Run.” The city also provided inspiration to famed author William Faulkner. Although generally associated with Oxford, Mississippi, he spent time writing in Pascagoula in the 1920s at his friends’ beachfront cottage. He wrote his second novel, Mosquitoes, and started on his third, The Wild Palms, while resident in the city.

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.