Henderson's Point

By: Dan Ellis

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

In mid-1926, a $6,000,000 – 1400-acre development of Henderson Point again came alive, and was named Pass Christian Isles when it was headed by Allen Johness. Seven miles of canals and lagoons were dug while the marsh areas and low points were filled with dredged material resulting in the Bay shoreline being set at a minimum height of 12-feet above sea level. Just a few hundred feet north of the Louisville and Nashville railroad track, a several hundred-foot-square basin was dug and dredged — creating a large yacht harbor which connected the newly dug inland lagoons and waterways to the Bay of St. Louis on the west. (The harbor basin is now part of the waterway infrastructure which the “Sylvester Pagano Bridge” crosses.) Opposite the Harbor (at Bay View Street), a million-dollar plaza was envisioned as a new hub for commercial businesses that had been proposed to be built in Mediterranean style architecture. (Bradley’s night club was the first of two structures completed at that time.)