The confluence of rail lines made Hattiesburg the hub city for the Piney Woods region and the transfer point for timber shipped south to Gulf Coast ports. William H. Hardy, developer of the railroad from Meridian to New Orleans, founded the town in 1882 and named it for his wife, Hattie. Sawmills opened, and in 1897, with Hardy’s oversight, the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad connected Hattiesburg with new deep-water shipping facilities at Gulfport, enabling a lumber boom that lasted through World War I. In 1908, the Mississippi legislature created Forrest County from the western portion of Perry County and made Hattiesburg its county seat. The Baptist-affiliated South Mississippi College, now William Carey University, opened in 1906, and five years later the legislature made Hattiesburg home to the Mississippi Normal College (PW38), now the University of Southern Mississippi. In 1917, just as timber resources were being depleted, the U.S. Army opened nearby Camp Shelby, today the largest National Guard and Reserve Training center east of the Mississippi River and home to the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum.
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