Where the French came ashore
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville landed here in April 1699 while hunting for the mouth of the Mississippi River for King Louis XIV. His men built Fort Maurepas, the first permanent French settlement on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. When the colony moved across the water to present day Biloxi, the empty site became known as Old Biloxi. Fort Maurepas Park marks the landing now.
The name came much later. In the 1850s visitors arrived to try the mineral springs on Fort Bayou, and the Ocean Springs Hotel lent the town its name in 1854. The railroad reached town in 1870, and seafood was processed in waterfront sheds locals called fish houses or oyster houses. The city incorporated in 1892, between Biloxi Back Bay to the south and Old Fort Bayou to the north.
Today Ocean Springs is known as a dining town, with small restaurants, bed and breakfasts and nightlife under huge live oaks, plus the Walter Anderson Museum of Art and Shearwater Pottery. Front Beach on the bay has designated fire pits, and Fort Maurepas Park sits beside a fishing pier, a bait and tackle shop and a boat launch onto Biloxi Bay and the Sound.
The potter and the festival
Peter Anderson was the original potter at Shearwater Pottery, founded in 1928, and the town's biggest weekend carries his name. The Peter Anderson Arts and Crafts Festival began as a small volunteer gathering of local artists and has grown into what the national heritage area calls Mississippi's largest fine arts festival, held downtown on the first weekend of November.
The 48th festival is November 7 and 8, 2026, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with more than 400 artists, crafters and food vendors and about 100,000 visitors expected. For 2026 Amtrak added a temporary stop so festival goers can ride the train in from Mobile or New Orleans and skip the parking hunt.
