{"id":2924,"slug":"fort-maurepas-ocean-springs-mississippi","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Fort Maurepas was Louisiana's first capital — the 1699 fort Iberville built on Biloxi Bay when he couldn't find a site on the flooding Mississippi, the first European settlement in Mississippi and the colony's capital until Mobile. Bienville was the teenage lieutenant; the Iberville stone claimed it for France.","The fort was the improvisation — the 'elevated place' on the bay's northeast shore that was the best they could find, the four bastions and twelve guns built in three weeks, the 80-man garrison left when Iberville sailed home. The capital moved to Mobile in 1710; the fort faded.","The site is still there — the replica at Fort Maurepas Park, the Ocean Springs location that's the coast's origin, the stone that says '1699.' The file keeps the fort: the 1699 landing, the first capital, and the site that's Mississippi's French beginning.","Fort Maurepas is the archive's French file — the first capital, Iberville's landing, and the fort that started the Gulf Coast."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Fort Maurepas is the archive's French file — Louisiana's first capital, the 1699 settlement, and the site that's Mississippi's origin.","A fort that was the first capital keeps its bay — the file's suggestion being that Maurepas's hold is the founding: Iberville's choice, the 80-man garrison, and the site that's the colony's start."]}],"name":"Fort Maurepas","aliases":[],"type":"SITE","type_label":"Site","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","COLONIAL","MILITARY"],"groups":["legends"],"desc":"1699—Iberville’s first French settlement on the Gulf.","full_desc":"Fort Maurepas is a site in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. 1699—Iberville’s first French settlement on the Gulf. HauntHunt files it with the colonial era, military history and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 documented fact — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The site is open to visitors. For HauntHunt it is exactly the kind of file the archive exists for: a real place, a real record, and a story still being told.","address":null,"city":"Ocean Springs","county":null,"state":"Mississippi","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.402704,"lon":-88.788647,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"MS batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":2693,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence at the fort site. Fort Maurepas in Ocean Springs, Mississippi carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. The reports are anecdotal — consistent enough to record, thin enough to stay unproven. 'Fort Maurepas' carries the account. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Fort Maurepas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Maurepas","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The 1699 settlement is documented; the replica is on site. Fort Maurepas' past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath whatever lore attaches. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. Sources including 'Fort Maurepas' carry the record. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1699","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Fort Maurepas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Maurepas","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Fort Maurepas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Maurepas","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Fort Maurepas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Maurepas","desc":"1699 French settlement in Southeastern USA","extract":"Fort Maurepas, later known as Old Biloxi,\nwas a fort developed in colonial French Louisiana (New France) in April 1699 along the Gulf of Mexico (at present-day Ocean Springs, Mississippi).\nFort Maurepas was designated temporarily as the capital of Louisiana (New France) in 1699. The capital was moved from Ocean Springs to Mobile (in present-day Alabama) in 1710, then to New Orleans in 1723 on the Mississippi River. Government buildings in the latter city were still under construction.","img":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Fort_Maurepas.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled","score":89},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}