Gulfport to Meridian to Columbus — gulf to pine belt to prairie
Mississippi south to north along the eastern edge of the state. KGPT Gulfport-Biloxi sits on the Gulf coastline: the Mississippi Aviation Heritage Museum honors John C. Robinson, the Gulfport-born "Brown Condor" who flew combat for Ethiopia against Mussolini's 1935 invasion and later helped train the Tuskegee Airmen. Six miles east on the same coast is Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis's last home, where he spent the post-Civil War decade writing his Confederate memoir before his death in 1889. North to KMEI Meridian Key Field — the longest civilian runway in Mississippi (10,003 ft), home of Peavey Electronics (founded 1965 by Hartley Peavey, the guitar amps a generation of garage bands and arena stadiums depended on). Continue north to KGTR Golden Triangle Regional: ten miles southwest of Columbus, where Tennessee Williams was born in 1911 in the Victorian rectory of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, now the city's welcome center. Columbus AFB, six miles north of downtown, is one of the country's largest pilot training pipelines.