In 1682, the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle named the region Louisiana to honor King Louis XIV of France. The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas (now Ocean Springs, Mississippi), was founded in 1699 by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, a French military officer from New France. By then the French had also built a small fort at the mouth of the Mississippi at a settlement they named La Balise (or La Balize), "seamark" in French. By 1721, they built a wooden lighthouse-type structure here to guide ships on the river.
In 1682, the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle named the region Louisiana to honor King Louis XIV of France. The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas (now Ocean Springs, Mississippi), was founded in 1699 by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, a French military officer from New France. By then the French had also built a small fort at the mouth of the Mississippi at a settlement they named La Balise (or La Balize), "seamark" in French. By 1721, they built a wooden lighthouse-type structure here to guide ships on the river.