Cora's Boarding House

"When you plan your vacation, whether it be summer or winter, do not fail to consider carefully the many advantages Biloxi offers, and lastly, the Home Comforts, Good Cooking and Southern Hospitality afforded by the management of the White House."
- excerpt from Mrs. Cora White's original brochure

After completing his new Biloxi waterfront home around 1895, Walter White could finally focus all his attentions on building his young law practice. To help make ends meet, his resourceful wife Cora began taking in boarders, mainly local schoolteachers. As White’s law practice grew, so did the number of tourists who were drawn to the invigorating beauty of Mississippi’s beaches. With visitors vying for the Coast’s few hotel rooms, Cora White saw a new opportunity...and by 1904 she had developed a steady clientele of summer guests.

Mrs. White’s boarding business became so successful that she expanded by acquiring the Burke house next door. By 1910, one travel book was touting her establishment, now a row of seven Victorian residences, as “the leading hotel of Biloxi.” A year later, the savvy proprietress joined the first two homes together with a connecting building that became the grand front lobby and dining room, as well as a space for ballroom dancing, for the newly enlarged White House. She also added a generous front porch with classical pillars and a second floor balcony.

Live music filled the downstairs rooms, and in July of 1915 the “Daily Herald” reported, “an orchestra of talented musicians from New Orleans has been secured for the White House.” With band members often decked out in summer linen suits, an orchestra played three sets a day for Hotel guests–beginning in the morning and ending after the dinner hour.