This Is The Friendliest Small Town On The Gulf Coast
Ocean Springs may be known for its shoreline along the Mississippi Sound, but its real reputation is its friendliness and close-knit feel. USA Today named it the Best Coastal Small Town in the country in 2022, and in 2024 a poll of 3,000 travelers ranked its downtown among America's Most Charming Main Streets. Those honors drew national attention. The pull underneath them is local, built through family-run businesses, working artists, and a year-round festival calendar. That is what sets Ocean Springs apart from the other Gulf Coast communities.
A City Steeped In Rich History
French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville landed here in 1699 and built Fort Maurepas, the first French settlement on the Gulf Coast. The town took its present name in 1854, after a local doctor promoted its springs as having healing qualities, and it grew into a resort community that drew visitors from New Orleans and the Midwest.
The 1907 L&N Depot still anchors that history. The combination station now houses the Ocean Springs Chamber of Commerce, Main Street, and Tourism Bureau, and it remains the building most people picture when they picture the town.
The Charnley-Norwood House reaches further into American architecture. Louis Sullivan, the Chicago architect called the father of the skyscraper, designed the beachfront cottage in 1890, with his young draftsman Frank Lloyd Wright contributing to the work. Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed it in 2005, and preservationists rebuilt it from salvaged materials.
Lively, Locally Owned Downtown
Ocean Springs keeps a walkable downtown of independently owned restaurants, galleries, and shops rather than chains, with Washington Avenue as its spine.
Pleasant's BBQ opened in 1982 and is the oldest restaurant in town, still run by the founding family. The smoker is handmade, the meat cooks over pecan wood, and the plate specials change through the week.
Caboose Cones serves snow cones and ice cream from a restored train caboose. A few doors on, Government Street Grocery puts food, drinks, and live music in one low-key room.
Realizations, the Walter Anderson shop, sells prints of the painter's coastal murals. The Pink Rooster gallery a few steps away carries pottery, glasswork, and jewelry from area artists.
A Welcoming Community Atmosphere
The festival calendar is where the town's friendliness is easiest to see.
The Taste of Ocean Springs Food and Wine Festival, held each May, gathers local kitchens and live music along one downtown stretch. The Red, White, and Blueberry Festival follows in June, built around growers from the Ocean Springs Fresh Market, with cooking demonstrations and free blueberry-topped ice cream.
The Peter Anderson Festival in November is the largest of them, the biggest arts and crafts show in Mississippi, drawing around 400 artists, makers, and food vendors into the downtown grid. It honors Peter Anderson, the potter who founded Shearwater Pottery in 1928.
Coastal Beauty And Outdoor Living
The Davis Bayou Area, the mainland unit of Gulf Islands National Seashore in Mississippi, sits at the edge of town. It carries fishing, hiking, biking, a campground, and ranger programs along a quiet stretch of marsh and live oak.
A visitor center near the entrance runs exhibits, and the Davis Bayou Trail loops past a fishing pier, a boat launch, and the campground.
Fort Maurepas Park keeps a beachfront with a playground and splash pad, and Ocean Springs Harbor a short way off serves as the base for the town's boating and fishing.
Shearwater Park, Little Children's Park, and the Gay-Lemon Complex hold the ballfields and greenways. Marshall Park anchors downtown gatherings under its live oaks, with public art and a bandstand.
Creative Spirit And Cultural Heart
Ocean Springs is the recognized art center of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and the Walter Anderson Museum of Art is its anchor. It holds the work of the painter and muralist who rowed out to uninhabited Horn Island to paint its wildlife.
Local artists also show at the Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Center, which runs classes, exhibitions, and performances, and hosts Fridays at the Fort, a free monthly evening of food and music.
The Ocean Springs Community Center, Senior Citizens Center, and Civic Center handle the everyday civic life, the meetings, workshops, receptions, and dances that keep a small town's calendar full.
What Holds Ocean Springs Together
What holds Ocean Springs together is the same thing that makes outsiders notice it. The arts roots run through Walter Anderson's museum and the working studios downtown, the food runs through a place like Pleasant's that has fed the same families since 1982, and the outdoors runs through Davis Bayou and the harbor. None of it leans on a casino or a strip of resorts. The town rebuilt itself around its own character after Katrina, and that character, more than the shoreline, is what residents and returning visitors keep coming back to.
