Despite its traditional name, Old Spanish Fort, this tabby and bousillage structure was neither Spanish nor a fort, and documentary, archaeological, and architectural investigations indicate that it has always been a residence. It is the oldest building in Mississippi, the sole above-ground structure remaining from Mississippi’s French period, and the state’s only known surviving tabby structure. In 1741, Sieur Joseph Simon de la Pointe passed this land, given to him by the French government in 1715, to his daughter Marie upon her marriage to German immigrant Hugo Augustus Krebs. The couple had seven children before Marie’s death in 1751; Hugo lived here until he died in 1778.
Through a complex evolution, the low rectangular structure (37 × 67 feet) reached roughly its current form by 1820. As seen from the south, the original tabby section—the three central bays (1757)—is flanked by a room on the right (east) side (1762), and a c. 1790 room on the left (west). In 1772 British surveyor Bernard Romans reported that a hurricane struck the plantation, and dendrochronolgy has confirmed that much of the roof structure dates to the fall of 1772. The roof acquired its broken-ridge undercut gallery form around 1820.
The central section’s tabby consists of lime, water, and sand, with oyster shell aggregate. Hewn wooden posts protect the walls’ corners and frame the windows and doors, and the roof plate sits directly on the cementitious walls. The original tabby floor was covered with wood in the nineteenth century. The large central room with fireplaces at each end was divided into two rooms, the larger taking up the door and window to the left, and the smaller lit by a window. The 1762 east room addition is also of tabby construction. The present wall between the east room and the central room is not the original tabby exterior wall, which was removed around 1820 and a bousillage (clay with moss binding) wall erected several feet to the east, creating a smaller east room. The west room walls (c. 1820) are bousillage.
Krebs descendants occupied the house until 1914. It then passed through various hands until 1939, when Jackson County took ownership. In 1940 the county leased the house to the American Legion, which began a renovation. That year, architect Richard Koch and preservationist Charles E. Peterson visited the site, and Peterson declared it an “important archaeological specimen.” Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) staff documented the building before the 1940s renovation. This and subsequent “restorations” were typical of the mid-twentieth century “scrape” approach, which involved removing much historic, if not original fabric, and so destroying evidence of the building’s later history. Two more restorations in 1984 and 1996 aimed for an 1820s period of interpretation, but recent research shows that the building now combines elements of plan and appearance that never existed before the late twentieth century. After damage by Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge, the building was extensively studied and restored.