Deer Island, the small island located just off the coast of Biloxi, Mississippi, goes back to the earliest European exploration of the Gulf Coast. When French explorers charted this region in the late 1600s and early 1700s during the era of French Louisiana, they named the island “Île aux Chevreuils”—French for “Island of the Deer” because of the abundance of deer observed there🦌 Over time, as English became the dominant language in the area following the Louisiana Purchase and later American s