Was Deer Island really home to a nudist colony? Here’s the true story.

A nudist colony on Deer Island?

Not likely.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast island has a long history pre-dating Native American villages and including pirates, rum-runners, cattle farmers, a hermit, an amusement park closed down by mosquitoes and haunting ghost stories.

Old rumors of a nudist colony there have resurfaced with news that a small, private chunk of the mostly publicly-owned, mostly undeveloped island near Biloxi’s mainland is for sale.

What can be proven about nude sunbathing on Deer Island is this: For a brief period after World War II, adherents to the naturism movement staked out part of the sandy island for private nude sunbathing for a few families, including children.

They dared to write in “Sunshine & Health” national magazine about their island discovery and invited others to help them form a new naturist campsite to be called Group 246. Like others of their time worried over semantics, they preferred “naturists” to “nudists.”

The December 1947 magazine article in the official publication of the American Sunbathing Association caught the eye of the editor of The Daily Herald, an earlier edification of this newspaper, and he wrote a brief about the mag article and tracked down one of the naturists who explained:

“We have found an ideal spot of about 30 acres on Deer Island but don’t know whether the state owns it.”

A Deer Island ‘campsite’ for naked sun bathing

Obviously, formation of the camp was in early stages if they didn’t know whether their spot was in private or public hands. The S&H magazine article explained further:

“We are going to obtain a tract of land on Deer Island for our campsite. We have been out there nearly every weekend and have found an ideal place. It has a beautiful beach and clear water and a hill of sand, caused by dredging the channel, for sunbathing on.

“It also has a lot of pine timber that is cleared of undergrowth and is grassy and shady. There are plenty of trees for log cabins or shelters for a camp. All we need is cooperation and elbow grease to get it going.

“At present we have only two couples besides ourselves and five children. Anybody that is in this vicinity that is interested and wants to take part in this health-giving camp can contact me.”

The original magazine article was signed by Pfc. and Mrs. Harvey Briggs.

The Herald editor tracked down Mrs. Briggs, whose name was Maxine, at “hut city Keesler Field.” The location was likely a reference to temporary post-war Quonset hut housing on the Air Force base under transformation as a former wartime Army Air Corps base.

Then and in following years, we learn nothing else from the Herald. The silence is surprising considering the Deep South’s moralistic fascination with nudism, but a modern computer key-word search of Herald microfilm uncovers no other mentions of a colony or camp, or of the Briggses.

‘Nudist Colony Planned for Deer Island’

Interestingly, other newspapers from Louisiana to Tennessee jumped on the bandwagon and from them we learn a little more about this 1947 venture. The Briggses had two children. Harvey was from Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Maxine from Langdon, North Dakota.

The Briggses believed the practice of going without clothes is the most basic and pure form of existence. Nudism/naturism is defined as a social practice in which the sexes interact freely and commonly without engaging in sexual activities.

The S & H magazine had gained in popularity in Word War II when Uncle Sam sent prodigious amounts of reading material to soldiers. No pornography mags were allowed but S&H somehow bridged the gap. Not surprisingly, the Briggs’ Deer Island venture came two years after war’s end, at a time when more and more in-the-buff camps and colonies popped up.

Harvey Briggs quickly insisted the headline of the Herald editor – “Nudist Colony Being Planned For Deer Island” – was wrong.

From other newspapers we learn Briggs did not want “nudist” used with the proposed island camp.

“Pfc. Harvey Briggs has protested reports that he and his friends wish to organize a nudist colony in this area,” The Times Picayune of New Orleans, explained a few days later.

Harvey was quoted: “What the group wants is ‘a sunbathing club.’ All we want is some secluded place where we can live as nature intended us to live – and not covered with clothes.

“Oh, I know a majority of the people are prudish but we don’t want to offend anyone. If our camp is close to a highway we’ll be clothed when we get near it.”

He also confessed to a States-Item reporter:

“Some people, I guess, will say we are Communists. I’ll agree with them there on only one point, though. When a person sheds his clothes in our camp, he also sheds his rank. A person is not known by his standing in his community, whether he be a doctor or lawyer or a bank president.

“...I’ve gotten so many benefits myself from living as nature intended me to,” then looking at his military uniform, added, “I’ve got to wear those things and I’m losing those benefits, slowly, though.”

Social nudity wasn’t a new trend

The semantics of naturist vs. nudist and established vs. pending seemed a loosing battle for the Briggses. Even a newspaper in Knoxville, Tenn., reported as fact “the establishment of a nudist colony on Deer Island.” Yet, the venture likely never moved out of the realm of the S&H proposal.

Anyone with background of how the military at that time kept close reins on soldiers and their families will suspect the Briggs’ camp idea became a victim of such pulled-in reins. Briggs was a 21-year-old married father of two and private first class. His commanding officers would not be enamored of the publicity that sprang from his S&H announcement.

Although the local newspaper made no further comments, the Times-Picayune did editorialized:

“Mr. Briggs hastily explains that it really is not a nudist camp, only nature in the raw. But there is something about the Gulf Coast which makes us suspect that it’ll be no go with either the folks who live there, or the law.”

At that time, the Mississippi Coast was famous for its illegal gambling, drinking and black market taxes, but a nudist camp? That was likely too much.

Although the locals didn’t want social nudity in their back yard they happily kept up with world views of buff stuff. The 1940s and ‘50s Herald pages were filled with stories on camps and colonies elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe, along with a lot of joke fillers:

A Useless Vacation: A pickpocket in a nudist camp.

Today’s Smile: As unpopular as a back slapper in a nudist colony

Difficult Task: For a clothing salesman to get and order in a nudist colony.

When the Briggses made the scene in the 1940s, social nudity was far from a new trend. In fact, through human history it was more common then not, at least until the Judeo-Christian-Muslim interpretation of body caused self-consciousness and shame of nakedness.

Modern naturism has German origins at the turn of the 20th Century as a rebellion against such rigid moral attitudes. It spread across Europe in WWI and reached the U.S. by 1930.

While countless Americans had long enjoyed skinny dipping and nude sunbathing, the practice took on no formal organization until the predecessor of today’s American Association of Nude Recreation became the main promoter of sloughing off both convention and clothing.

Despite conflicting laws and definitions of morality, the U.S. has over 200 clothes-optional family resorts, including one near Slidell. There are also nude tennis courts, ship cruises, campgrounds and motorcycle rallies defying the same social, cultural and moral dictates the Briggses faced 78 years ago.

Kat Bergeron, a veteran reporter and feature writer specializing in Gulf Coast history and sense of place, is retired from the Sun Herald. She writes the Mississippi Coast Chronicles column as a freelance correspondent. Reach her at BergeronKat@gmail.com or at Southern Possum Tales, P.O. Box 33, Barboursville, VA 22923