Take 5: Unique aspects about the Mississippi Gulf Coast

1. Barq’s Root Beer was invented in Biloxi by Edward Charles Edmond Barq Sr. He bottled his first root beer in 1872, according to the company's website.

2. Space travel begins in Mississippi. NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center in Waveland is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility. 

3. The Biloxi Lighthouse is the only U.S. lighthouse located in the middle of a two-lane highway.

  

4. The Pascagoula River is the largest free-flowing river in the lower 48 states.

  

5. Jimmy Buffett was born in Pascagoula and you can view his first home and the bridge that’s now dedicated to him. 

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by travel and food writer Chere Dastugue Coen, who loves the Mississippi Gulf Coast.