Old Spanish Fort, Historic French colonial house in Pascagoula, United States.

The Old Spanish Fort is a colonial-era house in Pascagoula, Mississippi, built with remarkable local materials. The walls are made of oyster-shell concrete, and the wooden frame comes from longleaf pines native to the region, making it a unique example of early construction techniques.

The house was founded in 1757 by French-Canadian settler Joseph Simon dit La Pointe and is the oldest confirmed building on the Gulf Coast of the United States. Over the following decades, it was enlarged and adapted multiple times, surviving hurricanes and other challenges of the coastal region.

The name "Old Spanish Fort" dates from the late 18th century, when the house served as the fortified home of Don Enrique Ginarest, a Spanish Army officer who married a granddaughter of Hugo Krebs. The building is not a fort, and it is not named after its founding family: it is called LaPointe-Krebs House after Joseph Simon dit La Pointe and his son-in-law Hugo Ernestus Krebs.

The building operates as a museum where exhibits present the history of Pascagoula and Jackson County. Check ahead for opening days and times, and plan to spend enough time to understand the exhibits and explore the rooms carefully.

Scientific analysis of the wooden beams reveals the building was constructed in three phases: 1757, 1762, and 1772. This discovery suggests owners reused wooden material from earlier structures, possibly after hurricane damage forced repairs and rebuilding.