Nice story, Ed.

When the Edgewater Gulf Hotel opened in 1927 it wasn't in Gulfport or Biloxi but in an unincorporated area of Harrison County along Highway 90. Although the hotel is listed in Biloxi and Gulfport City Directories, its advertising usually indicated its location "midway between" the two cities. The residential snowbird community of Edgewater Park grew up on the east side of the hotel in the late 1920s and at one time had a post office which the hotel used as it's address in the 1930s and 1940s. Most city directories in the 1940s and 1950s show the hotel on West Beach Boulevard, Biloxi, even though it was still not in Biloxi proper until the 1960s. Outside the city limits was obviously a safer place for illegal gaming and liquor and so this unincorporated stretch of Highway 90 west of Biloxi became a haven for gambling at places like the Edgewater, the Broadwater Beach Hotel, the Beach Club, Paddock Club, Raven Club, and many others. Gradually the cities of Gulfport and Biloxi extended their city limits until they met at DeBuys Road, west of the Edgewater Gulf Hotel. When the hotel was razed in 1971 it was well within the city limits of Biloxi.