Clark Seafood, located on Lowry Island near the Gulf of Mexico in Pascagoula, originated as the Mississippi branch to its sister companies located in Bayou La Batre, Alabama and in Slidell, Louisiana. Originally owned by the Clark family out of Bayou, La Batre, the Pascagoula branch was later owned by James “Ralph” Horn, the husband of Leila Clark.
Under Horn’s direction, Clark Seafood processed some 500-150,000 pounds of fish per day. The company’s fleet consisted of twenty-five red snapper boats as well as butterfish, redfish, and gill net boats with the total fleet boasting more than 65 fishing vessels. The company employed over 150 workers, captains and crew members.
Fishing the Gulf of Mexico all the way to the Caribbean Sea, Clark Seafood was recognized to be one of the largest producers of red snapper in the United States. Their products were sold and transported from coast to coast, with their fleet of six 18 wheelers delivering to major cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and even New York’s Fulton Fish Market.
Of historical interest is the incident of the “MISTAKE” whose homeport was at Clark Seafood in Pascagoula. In August 1993, while fishing the waters some fifty miles south of New Orleans, the vessel hit a snag only to reveal that they had caught a load of silver coins bearing the date 1783 and the mint mark of Mexico. These coins would prove to be a very significant catch as they were from the sunken “EL CAZADOR” that had perished some two centuries earlier while transporting the newly minted coins to the then Spanish-controlled Louisiana Territory. This catch led to the discovery of the remnants of “EL CAZADOR”, a very impressive marine archeological find.
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