After a fairly slow start, the Gulf Coast poll to help us build our list of 101 Mississippi Places to See Before You Die has taken off in the last few days, helped apparently by a large contingent of Hancock Countians. As of earlier today, halfway through the two-week open polling, we have a total of 1,588 votes, a little less than three times the number we had for the Natchez area poll at its halfway point.

As you will see below, while the Natchez poll had a fairly even stair-step of votes when we checked on it at the halfway point, the four Hancock County properties in our Coast poll are well out ahead of the rest of the pack, leaving Beauvoir in sixth place, a full 5 percentage points behind St. Rose de Lima in Bay St. Louis. And Old Spanish Fort is in 14th place, with only 2% of the vote, a little embarrassing for the oldest building in the state. To compare, in the Natchez poll (the only one we’ve done so far, and therefore the only one available for comparison at this point), even after the sudden flurry of voting in the last week, the top 15 out of the 37 properties all ended up with about 5% of the total vote.

Looks like the folks from Harrison and Jackson counties need to jump into the fray or their local landmarks are going to get left in the dust.

As you will see in the comment section to the poll, our initial list also had some fairly glaring omissions, and just as I did in the Natchez poll, I accidentally left one property off the poll that was included in the list–the Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center for the Arts in Ocean Springs. Honestly, I double-checked for that and thought I had caught everything! Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader, I added that building to the poll on Tuesday, when we already had about 300 votes, so it’s already made good progress with 35 votes, and we may have to spot it a few votes to compensate for the late addition. Sorry about that y’all!

If you haven’t voted yet, head over there and cast your vote!

Categories: 101 MissPres Places, Contest, Gulf Coast