Lazaro Lopez

Born in Aviles, Asturias Province, Spain in 1850, Lazaro Lopez left his homeland for Cuba at the age of 13. He immigrated to the United States, originally landing Texas before settling in Biloxi in 1868. Speaking very little English, he found lodging and work with fellow Spaniards in a coffee house. By 1870, Lazaro was able to acquire, by tax sale, a piece of land on what is now the northwest corner of Reynoir Street and Howard Avenue, in the heart of Biloxi. This would prove to be the beginning of his significant landholdings in the city he now considered his home.

In 1871, he was married to Julia Dulion whose father was a French immigrant and mother was a native of Ireland. Together, the couple would bear a family of ten children as Lazaro worked various jobs and forged alliances and partnerships within the community. Lopez’s partnership with F. William Elmer, W.K.M. Dukate, William Gorenflo, and James Maycock was one that would set the Mississippi Gulf Coast on a new trajectory. With the 1881 formation of the first seafood canning company in the area, Lopez, Elmer & Company, a new era would begin for Biloxi.

In 1884, Lopez and Dukate would withdraw from this partnership and ally with the Dunbars of Louisiana forming Lopez, Dunbar’s Sons & Company, a firm that would grow to be the largest shrimp and oyster canning company in the world.

Aside from his interests in the seafood industry, Lazaro was a very enterprising young man. He operated L. Lopez and Company, a mercantile and ship chandlery, was in partnership with his brother-in-law, T.P. Dulion in the family’s department store, as well as held interest in the two ice houses in the city. With a determination to build the city, he built its first three-story building and, in 1890, the Lopez family would build an elegant and stately home on the corner of Reynoir and Caillavet. Sadly, this home, and other structures, including the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, were destroyed in 1900 by one of the greatest fires known to the city. Undeterred, the Lopez’s built another splendid two-story home and served as Chairman of the committee to rebuild the Cathedral.  To this day, the

bells that were donated by the Lopez family and the five stained glass sanctuary windows donated by Julia in honor of her beloved Lazaro after his passing remain in the Cathedral.

A financial pioneer, Lazaro was the founder of the Interstate Building and Loan Association in Biloxi and later the Bank of Biloxi, along with other prominent seafood packers and merchants. He and his wife, Julia, were very active civically, including serving several terms as alderman-at-large and as president of the Commercial Club from the origin of the organization until his death. Wanting to afford every opportunity for those who came to the area to find work and a new home just as he had, Laz and Julia were great benefactors to the Biloxi schools. They donated land and buildings to form two public schools for the children of those working in the seafood industry and residing in the housing “camps”.

In 1903, the Lopez family, combining business with pleasure, set out for Europe. After visiting his family in Aviles, Spain, they traveled on to Rome. It was here that Lazaro became very ill and quickly died from kidney failure. Prior to his passing, Lazaro had emphatically stated his wish to be buried in his beloved Biloxi, but this was not met without challenge, as, at that time, ocean liners refused to carry a corpse across the Atlantic. However, the family was able honor his wishes by listing his remains as “marble statuary” on the ship’s manifest.

When the news of Lazaro’s passing was sent back to Biloxi, the entire city in which he was now a revered and respected citizen was shaken and mournful. So, with the time required for the family’s return to their home, twenty-three committees were formed to arrange his burial arrangements. Twenty-four days after his passing, the funeral procession of Lazaro Lopez marched through the city with private citizens, business owners, civic and private organizations either participating or lining the streets. All schools, private, parochial, and public were closed as three hundred children marched. Businesses were closed and draped in mourning as ladies’ auxiliary groups and two hundred members of the Oystermen’s Protective Society proceeded in what would be described as the ‘largest funeral ever witnessed in Mississippi’.

Such was the mutual love between Lazaro Lopez, Sr., the city of Biloxi and the seafood industry on which it was built.