Mississippi Maritime & Warship Museum

Plans for a state-of-the-art maritime museum that would ultimately be home to the Ingalls-builtUSS Ticonderoga continue to inch forward.

The nonprofit Mississippi Maritime & Warship Museum inked a partnership with the University of Southern Mississippi to help the group identify, gather and catalogue artifacts.

Museum supporters hope those artifacts — things such as ship models, historic photographs and documents — will start moving into their temporary home at Bayside Village Senior Apartments sometime in the next six months.

USM students are expected to start gathering facts by early summer, said Dr. Jack Hoover, president of the group.

On the day when the USM partnership became official, Hoover led a bus tour that included the proposed museum site on Lowry Island, the Ingalls shipyard and the temporary space at the senior apartments, formerly the historic high school on Pascagoula Street.

State Tourism Director Mary Beth Wilkerson was among those who participated. She said the maritime museum could ultimately serve as a tourism “bookend” for south Mississippi, along with the Infinity Science Center in Hancock County.

The plan is to build the museum first, then transport the “Tico,” as it’s known, home from San Diego.

The price tag is expected to be considerable, about $25 million for museum, refurbished ship and related infrastructure.

Hoover said the group is looking at all sources of funding — state and federal grants, as well as corporate contributions.

They’ve just hired a grant writing consultant, which Hoover said promises to yield results.

The partnership with the university is costing the effort nothing, since students in the USM’s Department of Archives and History will receive credit in exchange for their research.

Hoover said he’d like to see the museum start coming out of the ground sometime in the next five years. Besides attracting out-of-town tourists, the museum and ship could be rented out for events such as wedding receptions and civic meetings, he said.

Such a project could have a domino effect on development, organizers said, noting that at least three new restaurants have opened in Indianola near the new BB King Museum.