History of D'Iberville The town of D’Iberville was once a part of unincorporated North Biloxi. The city of nearly 7,000, won incorporation in February of 1988. This area was once home to farmers and trappers, from Indians to Canadians and later hosted the landing of D’Iberville in 1699, for whom the city was named. Early industry besides farming and trapping included a brick yard and the operations of kilns. These thrived from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to about the time of the Civil War. Most of the early settlers were of French decent, but during the early nineteenth century the Gulf Coast population grew as Anglo-Americans emigrated from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. As eastern European immigrants were ushered in, D’Iberville fishing and boat building industry grew and helped with Biloxi’s rise as the “Seafood Capital of the World”. The first coastal “Blessing of the Shrimp Fleet” was held in the waters adjacent to Sacred Heart Catholic Church in D’Iberville in 1920 at the request of the Austrian fishermen living in the area.

Linked by their common heritage and industry, the cities of Biloxi and D’Iberville were also linked by ferries and boats. Later a bridge which entered D’Iberville on Central Avenue, was completed and thus commercial development grew in this area, complimenting existing development along D’Iberville’s waterfront on the back Bay of Biloxi. The heyday of this area,
called “West End”, was in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Like all small cities, downtown areas declined, but when the Back Bay (I-110) bridge was completed in 1973, the commercial pattern of the city saw changes. Now the area consists of approximately 150 businesses, which include automobile dealers, large grocery stores, and franchise restaurants.

Decisions concerning the use of the waterfront will have its impact on the commercial community in D’Iberville. The community’s disenfranchised commercial water-oriented businesses located in the old “West End” and on the waterfront will have the most to gain as the city focuses its attention to this area and the resettlement of the “West End”

History of St. Martin

Two centuries ago remnants of the early colonial French Canadians and German settlers resided in the area. Colonel St. Martin, a French Colonial, is believed to have lived here. He had no sons to carry on his name, but his daughters married into other pioneer families. The street names hint at such founding families as the Borries, Bullock, Cannette, Fayard, Foutain, Seymour, and Tiblier.

The area was predominantly French Catholic. Most residents depended on timber, seafood and the production of naval stores for their livelihood.

 In the early 1900’s the local children went to a one room school house called “The Little Green School House”. IN 1926, St. Martin School was built on Lemoyne Boulevard.

In the early days, there were no churches in this community. Priests visiting from Ocean Springs and Biloxi took care of marrying couples and baptizing babies. Later a chapel was built and Mass was celebrated once a month. Reverend Patrick Carey was the first priest in residence in the parish. He served from 1921 to 1931 at Sacred Heart.

St. Martin gradually began changing with new families and new ideas. IN the 1950’s and 1960’s other subdivisions developed and population steadily grew. With more people came commercial development. Lemoyne Boulevard is lined with businesses and small shopping centers.

St. Martin is located in an unincorporated area in Jackson County and is under the jurisdiction of the Jackson County Board of Supervisors.

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