SLA Louisiana / Southern Mississippi Chapter May Meeting
The LaSoMi Chapter Spring meeting will be at Beauvoir and the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library
in Biloxi, Mississippi on Saturday May 13, 2000. The tour will begin at 10:30 a.m. and a boxed lunch will be served.
Please visit the website for Beavoir
for more information and driving directions. Also please complete and submit the meeting registration form.
Join us in touring the historic mansion and recently opened presidential library. Plan on having lunch and strolling
the grounds of one the South's finest historical treasures and repositories.
The
Jefferson Davis Presidential Library opened on May 30, 1998 on the grounds of Beauvoir in Biloxi, Mississippi.
This waterfront site was once property utilized by the Biloxi Indians. Jefferson Davis moved to Beauvoir in 1877
and actually resided in the main house at Beauvoir from 1879 to 1889. Davis died in 1889 in New Orleans.
Beauvoir, with its colorful history and diverse uses has been home to not only a number of people but also to several
libraries as well. Sarah Dorsey, as a writer of some note, maintained a library on the estate for her own use.
Jefferson Davis, a prolific writer and voracious reader, likewise established a significant private collection
at this historic site.
After years of working toward securing financial funding, in 1998, the Jefferson Davis Presidential
Library at Beauvoir was opened. This new facility is similar to other presidential libraries in that it contains
three primary components: a theatre/auditorium, an exhibit gallery and a research collection. The library collection
at this new facility includes many rare books owned by Jefferson Davis, other works on southern history and the
Civil War, periodicals dealing with Mississippi history as well as an archival collection of letters, manuscripts,
postcards, newspapers and clippings of the Davis family.