Page 30 - Pascagoula Magazine - 2025

A STEP BACK IN TIME
LaPointe-Krebs House and Museum
Taking a trip back in time might not be as far away or as hard as it sounds.
The award.winning LaPointe-Krebs House
and Museum in Pascagoula has daily tours that offer travelers and locals alike a chance to step back in time and experience life as it was in the 18th century.
“Visitors will get that sense of isolation because ultimately this was an actual frontier building,” said Jim Underwood, president of the LaPointe-Krebs Foundation. “You get a clear understanding of what it was like to wake up every morning and step out on the front porch, stare into the Pascagoula River and know the nearest neighbor was three miles up the river.”
As the oldest standing structure in the Magnolia State, the LaPointe-Krebs House, was built in 1757 and was previously referred to as the Old Spanish Fort. And it’s not only the oldest structure in the Magnolia State but the oldest building in the entire Mississippi Valley in the vast region between the Appalachians and the Rockies.
“Now, it’s a fully restored relic that has survived 268 years and it’s still standing despite all the storms,” Underwood said. “It’s a true historical testament to see how the old building techniques have held up and the tabby construction used is unique to the Gulf Coast.”
Built of a French Colonial heavy-timber frame, the
1750s-era house is located on four acres at 4206 Fort St. in Pascagoula and overlooks Krebs Lake and the Pascagoula River. The property was settled in 1721 by Joseph LaPointe, and acquired in 1751 by Hugo Ernestus Krebs, who married LaPointe’s daughter, Marie.
The house blends French Colonial building techniques with those of Native Americans. The settlers and the Pascagoula tribe traded tools and tips for survival as well as shared construction methods. The house is a fascinating combination of the tabby method first used in its construction and the bousillage method, used in its later renovations.
The property remained in the ownership of the Krebs family until the late 1930s with seven generations calling it home. It was acquired by Jackson County in 1939 and the museum was added in 1988. Collectively, it has won a myriad of accolades with the most
recent as the 2022 Heritage Award of Excellence for Rehabilitation from the Mississippi Heritage Trust.
So, are you ready to take a trip within a time capsule containing 18th-century architectural trends and see firsthand how the earliest inhabitants of South Mississippi lived? Then be sure to visit the award- winning LaPointe-Krebs House and Museum.
30 Pascagoula, MS 2025 • www.cityofpascagoula.com