Old Biloxi Cemetery Tour goes digital

BILOXI, MS (WLOX) - Once a year, Coast residents and tourists alike make the annual pilgrimage to Biloxi for the Old Biloxi Cemetery Tour. The tour is filled with actors portraying people from the city’s storied past.

Bill Raymond, Biloxi’s Historical Administrator, along with the help of sponsors and friends, brings this tour to life every year. “Over the last fourteen years, the city, along with a lot of help and a lot of friends, we’ve been able to put on a live annual cemetery tour," said Raymond.

The tour has gained popularity with each passing year. Each year, Raymond and his team create a new theme and spotlight new characters buried within the hallowed grounds. With so much work going into this event, Raymond said that it was time for the tour to grow.

“We’ve collected a lot of data, done a lot of filming, and we had all of this information that we haven’t been able to use for anything else other than these tours," Raymond said. "So, we received funding from the Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage area to create a digital version of that tour.”

Now, fans locally and abroad can enjoy the tour at their leisure. “People could enjoy it any time of the year," Raymond told WLOX. "[They can] come down to the cemetery or do it from your house, because we have a website that you can actually do the tour on.”

Walter "Skeet" Hunt was the founder of Mardi Gras on the Gulf Coast.(Photo source: WLOX)

Raymond said that actors portraying those city founders can actually be seen and heard on the digital tour through a cell phone with the simple scan of a QR Code. The QR code is located on the brochure found at the front of the cemetery. Once scanned, the tour comes to life on your device.

“It’s a great eclectic mix of people. Everyone from George Ohr, who a lot of people know to “Skeet” Hunt, who was the father of Mardi Gras here on the gulf coast, to Maria and Miranda Younghans who were both lighthouse keepers in the mid nineteenth century.”