Mobile Regional

A Gulf-front estate on Beach Boulevard in Biloxi, between Gulfport and Biloxi proper. Jefferson Davis, the only President of the Confederate States of America, lived here from 1877 until his death in 1889 — the years after the Civil War when he wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" in the small library cottage on the grounds. The house was built in 1848 in the Greek Revival raised-cottage style; Davis didn't build it but bought it from its original owner's family. After Davis's death, his widow Varina sold the property to the Sons of Confederate Veterans in 1903 with the condition that it be preserved as a Confederate veterans' home (which it operated as until 1957) and then as a memorial to her husband. The site was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — the museum and Confederate cemetery were destroyed, the main house unroofed. Restoration completed in 2008. The site remains controversial as Confederate-memory landscape, and the on-site Presidential Library was rebuilt as a more conventional historical museum.

A 33,000-square-foot aviation museum at 429 Pass Road in Gulfport, founded around the legacy of John C. Robinson — a Gulfport native and the first African-American combat pilot, who flew for Emperor Haile Selassie's Ethiopian Air Force in the 1935–36 war against Mussolini's Italian invasion. Robinson was known to the world as the "Brown Condor." Returning to the U.S., he became one of the original instructors who trained the Tuskegee Airmen. The museum's Mississippi Aviation Hall of Fame holds bronze busts of Apollo astronauts Fred Haise (born in Biloxi) and Stu Roosa, Shuttle astronauts Donald Peterson and Richard Truly, the Key Brothers (1935 endurance record holders), Roscoe Turner, and Jesse Brown (first African-American naval aviator, killed at Chosin Reservoir). Galleries on the Tuskegee Airmen, the Air Force's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron Hurricane Hunters (based at Keesler AFB next door), crop dusting, and Mississippi's military bases from 1917 to today.

Naval Air Station Pensacola has been the home of US Navy flight training since 1914. During WWII, some 28,000 naval aviators earned their wings here — including a young George H.W. Bush, who became the Navy's youngest pilot at age 18. The base is home to the National Naval Aviation Museum, the world's largest naval aviation museum with over 150 restored aircraft. It's also home base of the Blue Angels. The museum and base are accessible by car after landing at KPNS, but from the air, the scale of the facility — hangars, runways, and seaplane ramps dating to WWI — tells the story of naval aviation's birthplace. The on-base National Naval Aviation Museum is the largest of its kind: 150-plus aircraft including the SBD Dauntless that helped turn Midway, the NC-4, an F-14, and a Blue Angels A-4; admission is free, and the Cubi Bar Cafe inside recreates the old Officers Club from NAS Cubi Point.

The most extensive naval aviation collection in the world — more than 150 aircraft on the ground and in flight, on the grounds of NAS Pensacola. The SBD Dauntless that helped sink the Japanese fleet at Midway hangs from the ceiling. Apollo 7 command module, NC-4 (first aircraft to cross the Atlantic, 1919), F-14 Tomcat, A-6 Intruder, Blue Angels A-4F, and the only surviving Curtiss Pusher trainer (1911). Free admission. The Cubi Bar Café inside recreates the Officers Club at NAS Cubi Point, Philippines — pilots have signed plaques on these walls for decades.