 An apocryphal tale says that while involved in surveys for the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, Hardy came up with the idea of a north-south railroad from the Mississippi Gulf Coast to Jackson, Tennessee.While Hardy did not devise the entire railroad route on his own, he did make several important modifications to the lay of the line by changing the coast terminus and the route to cross his NO&NERR at a point he named "Hattiesburg," in honor of his wife, Hattie.Hardy determined Mississippi City, the county seat, was too far east of the natural deep-water harbor protected by Ship Island and proposed a new city, Gulfport, as the revised terminus.