Flotte’s Notes on
Mobile County, Alabama
An Unofficial Encyclopaedia
of Mobile & Baldwin Counties
Promoting local history, culture,
outdoors, businesses, attractions, food, people, and places
Please submit all comments,
additions, and corrections to: admin@flotte2.com
Flotte’s Notes
on Mobile are now being updated on Mod Mobilian: (www.modmobilian.com)
Mobile
·
As of 2003
·
The county seat is
·
The racial makeup of
·
The median income for a household in the county was
$33,710, and the median income for a family was $40,378. The per capita income
was $17,178. 18% of the population is
below the poverty line
Mobile
·
Mobile
County Organizational Chart
·
There are 3 county
commission districts and seats.
o
District 1: Merceria Ludgood was elected Oct. 2007.
o
District 2: Stephen Nodine Nodine is a former
o
District 3: Mike Dean is a
former two-term state legislator and
·
The
county charges each property owner a 6½-mill property tax for money spent on
specific Pay-As-You-Go projects approved by voters. Before 2004, all the money
was spent on road or bridge work, but residents have since voted to let the
money be used for incentives and buildings, as well. The fund brings in about
$22 million a year.
·
The
Mobile County Commission and voters have approved an $83.5 million contribution
to the Thyssen-Krupp incentives package.
o Up to $156.9 million will come from
the county's Pay-As-You-Go fund, and will be spent over 30 years to pay $70
million in bonds that will be sold to pay the county's incentives which will be
about $5 million a year. As part of the deal, the state will spend about $75
million to widen and expand
o The county must file a validation
lawsuit so investors can be sure there are no legal issues surrounding the
vote. County officials will then get insurance and a bond rating and should be
able to sell the bonds by the end of the year
o A consortium of other area city and
county governments has met to consider sharing a portion of that amount --
estimates range from $13.5 million to $20 million, but none of those
governments have formally agreed to any payments. Stephen Nodine said
he plans to ask
o Of its $83.5 million, the county will
get back about $45 million through the state transportation department paying
to widen and expand
·
Mobile
County Sheriff’s Office
o The Mobile County Sheriff is Sam
Cochran
o 2006 Mobile County
Sheriff’s Office Calls Hotspots
·
South
Alabama Regional Planning Commission
·
The
Mobile Metropolitan Planning Organization conducts the Mobile Area Transportation Planning
Process.
o The MPO includes the cities of Creola, Satsuma, Saraland, Chickasaw,
o The Governor designates a Metropolitan
Planning Organization (MPO) in each urban area having a population of at least
50,000 people or greater (as per the Federal Highway Act of 1962).
o Mobile County
Traffic Counts
Mobile
·
An 1861
map has towns labeled for
·
Current Municipalities are: Mobile, Bayou
La Batre, Chickasaw, Citronelle, Creola,
Dauphin Island, Mount
Vernon, Prichard, Saraland,
Satsuma, Theodore
|
Name |
Population |
Incorporated |
|
201,181 |
1819 |
|
|
34,311 |
1925 |
|
|
11,784 |
1957 |
|
|
7,000 |
1959 |
|
|
6,649 |
1946 |
|
|
4,000 |
1892 |
|
|
Bayou
La Batre |
3,000 |
1955 |
|
Creola |
2,050 |
|
|
1,200 |
1988 |
|
|
|
1,037 |
1959 |
·
U.S. Highway 43 was later built along this route.
·
In the 1940s, as
·
Beginning in the 1950s, chemical and other industrial
plants were built between US 43 and the
o
Enviromental concerns
about the
·
Towns on US 45 (north to south):
·
Population 829 (2003)
·
Ellicott’s Stone is a boundary marker placed in 1799 by a joint U.S.-Spanish survey party.
It marked 31° North latitude: the east-west line between the U.S. Mississippi
Territory and Spanish West
·
In
1799 the
o
o
In
1807, Aaron Burr was captured in
o
Some
Choctaws remained near
·
In
1830, President Andrew Jackson established the federal Mount Vernon Arsenal
three miles west of old
o
The
Arsenal was appropriated by Confederacy in 1861 and its equipment moved to
o
1887-1894
The Arsenal held about 450 Apache prisoners of
war, including Geronimo. Rather
loosely incarcerated, he served as internal justice of the peace for the
prisoners, and supposedly would greet local trains, selling the passengers
autographed trinkets. The Apaches were allowed to bury their own dead, and did
so secretly, with Delta riverbanks the rumored location.
o
Among
the post surgeons at
o
The
Arsenal was deeded to the State of
·
o
o
Its
name was changed in 1919 to
o
Treatment
for all citizens began in 1969.
o
Nine
of structures dating from the 1830's are still in use, including the
Superintendent's House,
o Physician E.L. McCafferty did important research at Searcy into
the dietary disorder pellagra. George Washington Carver sent him peanut oil as
a possible treatment.
·
The
Chastang settlement near Chastang's Bluff is represented by the large and
interesting colored Creole colony
who live in the vicinity. They claim descent from Dr. John Chastang of Spanish times but really go back to
the French period, of which
their patois is an interesting reminder.
·
The
group of north
·
The Kirk House
& Garden was built in 1914
Creola
·
Population 5,872 (2003)
·
Philip Satsuma of
·
Satsumas once grew in abundance in
the area once known as "Fig Tree Island," on the Pace Orange Orchard.
In 1910
Pace Orange Orchard had about 100 acres of pecans and satsuma
trees on the area
·
The
·
In 1922
a packing house built that still stands above Mac's Landing
·
Between 1912
and1924 the satsuma
trees damaged by cold weather & citrus canker
·
In 1959
Satsuma was incorporated
Saraland
·
From
the time of the French settlement at
·
Don
Diego Alvarez acquired Saraland through a Spanish land grant; the land was given
the name Alvarez Station by his
descendants.
·
In 1800 many families homesteaded the area, one of which was the
·
Its present day name later came from Clark J. DeWitt, a retired minister editor
who opened the first post office in 1895 and renamed the city after his beloved
wife, Sara.
·
Until
the mid 1880’s, Bayou Sara was known as Saw Mill Creek, from its junction with
Gunnison Creek to
·
Apart
from the occasional fish camp, timber, and turpentine extraction, a small scale
ship building operation, and numerous grist mills and saw mills, there was very
little industry in the Bayou Sara area until well into the 20th century.
·
Saraland was a sparsely populated city until the industrial boom,
which caused the northward expansion of
·
Royal Dutch Shell operates the Shell
Saraland Refinery, which was built
in 1975
·
In 2006, Saraland voted to break away from MCPSS and form
its own city school system. Saraland officials expect to have the new school
system in operation by 2009
·
·
Saraland
Historical Museum.
Chickasaw
·
Population
6,099 (2003)
·
Native
Americans referred to the creek running through the area as Chickasha Bogue
·
In
1733, a large tract of land containing what is now Chickasaw was deeded by Bienville to his friend D'Arraguette.
Complete records of all early changes in ownership are not readily available,
but the names of Lorending (Laurendine),
Chastang and Alvarez are among those mentioned.
·
Early
in the century, a sizeable development grew in what is now Whistler, centered around railroad shops.
·
In
1910, the Thompson brothers subdivided
·
In
the Chickasaw area there were farms and a mill which processed coconuts into
oil and soap
·
As
World War I loomed, the Tennessee Coal
and Iron Co., a division of U.S.Steel out of
·
In
1917 U.S. Steel announced it would build Chickasaw shipyard, supplied with
prefabricated steel from the
·
The cypress swamp adjacent to the stream (Chickasaw Bogue or Chickasaw Creek) was drained, dikes were
constructed, and drainage pumps were installed. Chickasaw
was built as a planned community with attractive and well-built homes for the
shipyard workers. The company held title to all the land in the town and
provided municipal services, such as sewerage service and police protection, to
the residents of the town. A deputy of the Mobile County Sheriff, paid by the
company, served as the town's policeman. Merchants rented the stores on the
business block. Many people in the
·
In
1939, the Village and shipyard were acquired by a
·
With production activity at its peak, Gulf Shipbuilding
employed between 10,000 and 15,000 workers. This population boom required the
introduction of eligibility requirements for living in company-owned
properties. Only persons with connection to the shipyard could rent houses from
the company while many previous occupants were forced to vacate. To further
accommodate the demand for housing, the federal government constructed the Gulf
Homes housing project, other temporary housing structures, and Navy barracks.
·
Grace Marsh
was the plaintiff in a U.S. Supreme Court case called Marsh
v. Alabama
(1946). Marsh, a Jehovah's Witness, undertook to distribute religious
literature on a sidewalk near the post office in Chickasaw, and was arrested on
a trespassing charge. She was subsequently convicted of the crime of
trespassing, and the
·
Early
in 1946, the entire village was purchased by Leedy
Investment Co. for one million dollars. The houses were sold to individuals,
with current occupants given first choice. The city of
·
In 1979, Halter Marine reactivated the shipbuilding
facility to provide service vessels and tugboats to the booming offshore
industry. The resurgence was short-lived and the facility was closed again in
1983. The former shipyard now serves as a small general cargo facility
·
The Chickasaw Shipyard Village Historic District
was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
·
Sources: Wikipedia, National Park Service, City of
·
Population
27,983 (2003).
·
·
East Prichard remained largely unsettled until 1860 when the
Clotilde landed in
·
In
1879, Cleveland Prichard (1840-1899)
founded the municipality and was postmaster. According to "75 years of
Prichard," by Julian Lee Rayford,
Prichard bought a tract of land on the east side of the Mobile and Ohio railroad and developed Prichard station into a
vegetable-shipping point for markets in the North and East, eventually
becoming the largest wholesale buyer and shipper in the nation.
·
After 1900,
·
During World War II Prichard became a company town as
many Mobile shipbuilding companies built homes for their workers in
·
During the 1950s and 1960s,
·
In the 1960s, Prichard's rigid system of segregation
collapsed, and many blacks who had previously lived in the Bullshead/Neely/Trinity
Gardens area of Prichard began moving into East Prichard (downtown Prichard)
causing a dramatic white flight to occur. Currently
·
In 1960,
·
In 1970,
·
The 1980s downtown vacancy rate was near 80%; as of 2000,
it is closer to 30%.
·
In the 80's and 90's problems with crime, drugs and
middle class flight were elevated when the areas major financial and employment
base left with the closing of Scott and International Paper companies and Brookley Field Air Base. This devastated the area and the
city struggled to recover.
·
In 1994, construction of I-165 was completed, and it has
produced some economic benefits in
·
In 1999, the city was forced to declare bankruptcy for
$5.3 million in debt. It emerged from bankruptcy in 2007.
·
Jesse
Norwood was elected mayor in 1990, impeached 10 years later and found guilty of
willful neglect of duty.
·
In 2004, the Prichard Housing Authority began demolition
of the Bessemer Avenue Housing Project in Bullshead.
·
In November 2004,
·
Mayor Ron Davis was elected in 2004.
Since
·
During
A.J. Cooper’s term, downtown was remodeled and the main entry was closed. This
tremendously affected downtown as safety became an issue when people had to
park behind storefronts. As a result, shoppers left and business decreased.
·
·
In 2006,
·
Built
in the 1940s,
o
LIGHT
of the Villiage is a Christian day camp for children
in Alabama Village run by John & Delores Eads – PR 7/15/2007
·
Sources: Leslie King, Lagniappe, 3/13/07; Wikipedia
·
Towns grew along the Mobile & Ohio Railroad.
·
U.S. Highway 45 was built along the Mobile & Ohio RR.
·
Much of the land in northwest
·
Towns on US 45 (north to south): Citronelle, Russell,
Gulfcrest, Chunchula, Oak
Grove, Mauvilla, Kushla, Eight
Mile, Whistler, Prichard
·
Towns on
·
Towns on
Citronelle
·
Population 3,675 (2003)
·
The area was settled in 1811.
·
On May 4, 1865 the last "sizable" confederate
force was surrendered by General Richard Taylor under the "surrender
oak". A reenactment of this event occurs every year at Citronelle.
Unfortunately, the historic oak was destroyed by a hurricane in 1902.
·
The town became a resort destination because of the
climate, herbs, and healing waters. Many hotels were built to accommodate the
visitors.
o Historic
hotels of Citronelle include: Southern Hotel (1870), Hygeia Hotel
(1892), Illinois Hotel (1895), Hotel Citronelle (1899), and the Waverly Hotel
and Pullman Hotel
·
1892 The Town of Citronelle was founded. The name
"Citronelle" is derived from the citronella plant.
·
In 1952, the Citronelle
Oil Field was discovered.
·
·
Lambert
Station was founded
by William Lambert, his brother, Nathan and four sisters who migrated from
·
Gulfcrest is a community of fewer than 100
people about six miles south of Citronelle on U.S. 45 and includes
·
In
the mid-1800s, the community was known as Beaver
Meadows (a.k.a. Beaver Mills) and was the home of one of
·
There
was a Mobile & Ohio train depot in Gulfcrest. The Eugene Vigor house was located
next to the train depot. In those days, the
·
Now
the only way to travel to the old community is to go north on U.S. 45 and turn
right onto
·
Gulfcrest used to have a school located on the
top of the hill on
·
Dottie’s
Gulfcrest
Grocery
has been run by Harvey and Dottie Boothe since 1993
when they bought it from Buddy Martin.
o Harvey Boothe
has been called “Mayor of Gulfcrest.” He said the
"city council members" are Ron "Cowboy" Frazier, Brian
Hendry, Chuck Hendry, Donnie Hendry, George Knapp, Morris Malone, Ronnie Myers
and Walt Turner.
·
The Pond House Nursery is a quarter-mile south of
·
Source:
PR 11/4/2004
·
Earlville
is a small community on the
·
Chunchula (historic Chunehula)
was a small Choctaw Settlement
·
The
Sturtevant brothers had a 264 acre dairy farm in Chunchula.
Charles Sturtevant was interviewed for the Works Progress Administration in
1938 (see here). He said his principal hobby was fox
hunting, and “Forty years ago fox were very numerous, even to catching them two
hundred yards from the front gate; but now, although not go numerous, they are
still plentiful.” He also had a residence in
·
In
the 1930s and 1940s, Chunchula was a bustling town of
turpentine stills and logging camps and lumber mills, the location of a hotel,
a theater, a dance hall and other thriving businesses
·
Davis
General Store
on U.S. 45 in Chunchula, has offered rural customers a wide variety of household
items and groceries for more than 30 years. It was built by owners Eugene and Leslyee Davis. In addition to gasoline, automotive products
and takeout food items, the store offers gloves, baskets, birdhouses, car
stereos, pocket knives, hunting knives, hats, fishing poles, fishing tackle,
dog food and large bags of corn for farm animals, hardware items such as
hammers and nails, PVC pipe and caulk.
·
James
and Joan Malone built Heritage Homestead in Chunchula
in 1993 is on 400 acres of farm and timberland., a re-creation of the type of
rural farmhouse common in south Alabama from the mid-1800s through the
mid-1900s. James Malone's family came to
·
Kushla was a station along the Mobile & Ohio Railroad
Magee Farm
·
Jacob
Magee, a
o The Farmhouse complex consisted of the
main house, post office, bath house and schoolroom. He
added a general store, which was operated by William Peckham
from
·
On
April 29, 1865 General Richard Taylor and General E. R. S. Canby met to
negotiate a cease fire prior to the surrender of the last organized Confederate
forces east of the
·
Jacob
Magee passed away in 1883. The Farm remained in the Magee family until it was
sold in 1898. The Farm was purchased by Alfred Henry Sturtevant, from
o Sturtevant’s son was the famous
geneticist Alfred Henry Sturtevant. He bred the Kushla
strain of Drosphilia melanogaster
o Upon the death of its last
owner, Margaret Sturtevant, in 2004, the house was purchased by the Civil War
Trust. It opened as a museum in 2004.
Eight Mile
·
The
first Baptist church to locate in
·
Eight
Mile had a train station, post office, one store and about 30 families in early
1900s
Turnerville
·
Turnerville residents are studying incorporation
(PR 5/5/08)
·
·
Towns
in west
o
o The road
was also spelled “Moffatt”. The Alabama Legislature changed the spelling to
Moffett in 1986, the city of
·
·
Towns
on US 98: Wilmer, Semmes
·
Towns
on
·
Towns
on
Wilmer
·
Wilmer
was incorporated in 1970. Wilmer’s citizens, long plagued with the town’s
reputation as a speed trap and a history of political chicanery, voted to
dissolve the town’s incorporation 1994.
·
Snuffy Smith's Antiques
and Country Store
·
The
·
Semmes is named after Admiral Raphael
Semmes
·
The
Semmes Rolling Store operated in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
·
Semmes
residents have met recently to discuss incorporating the community into its own
municipality to avoid annexation by
·
Tanner-Williams
·
Since
1929, Tanner Williams has celebrated May Day on the first Saturday in May with
a king and a queen and a May Pole dance. In the fall, it celebrates Heritage
Day. – PR 5/4/2007
·
Dauphin Island was settled by the French by 1702. Bayou la Batre and Coden were also settled by the French on the
·
Plantations on the western shore of
·
Towns grew along the
·
Towns on US90: Tillmans Corner, Theodore,
·
Towns on the Mississippi Sound (
·
Towns on
Tillmans Corner
·
Population
15,685 (2000)
·
In
the late 1800’s Bob Tillman opened a grocery store and the community became
known as Tillman’s Corner. James Tillman 1778 - 1860, was the progenitor of the
Tillmans of Tillman's Corner
·
The
main industry was Satsuma orchards and dairy farming. GM&O Railroad built a
track from Lloyd’s Station to Dawes, which had several large Satsuma orchards
and six packing sheds. Satsumas were picked at Dawes
Station and delivered to Lloyd’s Station to be shipped. In the 1930’s most of
the Satsumas were killed by a hard freeze that left
dairy farms as the main industry in Tillman’s Corner. People began to move from
the City of
·
Around
1945,
·
The Alabama Pecan Festival is held in November each year in Tillmans Corner.
·
Kroner no longer is found on maps, but until the
mid-1920s a town by that name was listed on the Old Mobile and Western Railroad
line. About halfway between Tillman's Corner and Dawes, it was named after a
young German immigrant, John Martin Kroner. Kroner
Theodore
·
Population
6,811 (2000)
·
Theodore
was named for William Theodore Hieronymous, Sawmill
Operator and Postmaster
·
The Theodore Industrial Park
was established in the 1960s
·
The
Antoine Dairy in the
·
The
Theodore's Historic Foundation has a museum in the old schoolhouse on
·
West Indies salad—a
mix of marinated crabmeat and onions, created in 1947 by Bill Bayley at his Bayley's Steakhouse
on Dauphin Island Parkway on Hollingers Island. Bayley, who died in 1997, also invented fried crab claws.
St. Elmo
·
Population 3,918 (2003)
·
After
the post office was opened in 1870, and the railroad was put through, the
"town" was moved from the bay to its present site.
·
George
Cassibry was the first to discover the pine and
magnolia wilderness of southwest
·
A
brief real estate "boom" after the turn of the twentieth century
brought an influx of settlers from the
·
In
the following years, severe winters that decimated the fruit trees caused many
disappointed settlers to leave the area.
·
·
78
million pounds per year of human waste sludge from MAWSS is spread onto 3000
acres of farm fields around Grand Bay, most owned by coffee magnate Leroy Hill. The practice has saved MAWSS $10 to $15
million over the past 10 years according to MAWSS. – PR 8/31/08
·
El Cazador Museum
·
Sources: Citizens for a Better Grand Bay Website (Muriel
Donald) Map of Historical Sites
Bayou La Batre
·
City of Bayou
La Batre Website
·
Bayou
La Batre Area Chamber of Commerce
·
Population 2,754 (2003)
·
Originally
called "Rivere D'Erbane,"
the bayou acquired present name from French-maintained battery of artillery on
·
Bayou La Batre was founded in
1786, when French-born Joseph Bouzage (Bosarge) was awarded a 1,259-acre Spanish land grant on the
·
Founded
1786 when Joseph Bouzage (Bosarge),
1733-1795, moved into the area and was awarded a 1259 acre Spanish land grant
on
o
Born
·
The
City of
·
The large Asian population (33%) is attributable to a
large influx of Vietnamese American shrimpers as immigrants following the
Vietnam War. Bayou la Batre was a popular destination
for such immigrants because it fosters and continues to foster a similar shrimping industry to that of
·
Bayou La Batre is a
shipbuilding center and seafood-processing harbor for fishing boats and shrimp
boats.
·
In
2005, Tim James, a Greenville-based developer and son of former Gov. Fob James,
began a $200 million plan to transform the Bayou into a tourist destination. The
James project called for the purchase of city-owned waterfront land. James also
has pledged to build a new, city-owned sewage processing plant. James and his
partner Mobile attorney Braxton Counts, and
o After the Hurricane Katrina, rising
insurance premiums caused James to postpone his plan. He offered a deal without
the road and water improvements. But a $25 million federal grant covered the
costs of a new water plant and a grant for $7 million would enable more than
100 homes to be rebuilt. The town hired the Urban Land Institute, which recommended
rustic, low-impact properties instead of selling Lightning Point to James. In October
the city council informed James that it would not sell the land. – Christian Science Monitor 10/26/06
o Part of the land included 7.4 acres owned
by the Parrish family south of the city docks. There had been decades of
quarreling between the city and the Parrish family over two significant issues:
the location of the property's northern border and whether the city can use
eminent domain to acquire the Parrishes' land. The Parrishes purhased the property
in the 1960s, with plans to develop a hotel and marina there, but he was soon
in an argument with city officials about the property's boundary. In 2007,
Mobile Circuit Judge Rick Stout ruled in favor of the Parrish family -- giving
the family clear title. After Stout's ruling, a the
land was listed for sale for $8 million. The property has no road or utility
access without obtaining an easement through the city's docks property.
o Mayor Stan Wright insisted that the
city has the responsibility to protect its docks land by purchasing the Parrish
property or acquiring it through eminent domain proceedings. Once the city owns
the land, it will build sea walls along the shore. In 1969, the Alabama Supreme
Court ruled that the city could not take the Parrish property because it did
not lie within city limits.
·
The
Hurricane Katrina-ruined strip of mom-and-pop stores that constituted Bayou La Batre's commercial center from the 1920s until the local
economy went south in the late 1970s was demolished in 2007 – PR 3/27/07
·
Coden’s name is derived from the French "Coq d'Inde," meaning "
·
At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the area was
known as a resort, with the Rolston Hotel drawing
guests from around the region. The hotel was destroyed by a hurricane in the
early Twentieth Century, and the community fell on hard times.
·
Fresh seafood is available daily on Shell Belt Road from fishing boats returning to Bayou Coden.
·
Mary's
Place (5075 Hwy 188) was opened by Mary
Hunter in 1935; Ms. Hunter served her home-cooked Creole specialties to many
famous diners including Greta Garbo; closed briefly
after Mary's death, but reopened in 1990
·
Organizations:
The Coden Community House, Coden
Community Associations,
·
The Portersville Revival Group
·
·
A
fish-canning factory was a major source of income. It was rebuilt twice after
powerful storms hit the town in 1906 and 1916.
·
Its
economy and people are largely dependent on the seafood and marine industries
as well as chemical plants.
·
·
·
·
o
The eastern, wider portion of the island is shaded by
thick stands of pine trees, but the narrow, western part of the island features
scrub growth and few trees
o As a barrier island, the size and
shape of
o Changes in Dauphin
Island (Press-Register Graphic)
·
·
The island has a permanent population of 1,423 (2003).
·
·
Although the island has several bird sanctuaries, the
main one is the 164 acre (663,684 m²) Audubon
Bird Sanctuary.
o
·
The first Sand
Island Lighthouse, authorized in 1834, was replaced by a structure 150 feet
high, at a cost of $35,000, that was dynamited by
Confederate forces. The present lighthouse (1873; in use until 1970), has been
placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its ownership was recently
transferred from the Department of Interior to the Town of Dauphin Island.
·
Sources: The
Harbinger, Press-Register, A HISTORY OF
·
·
Shell middens, perhaps 1500 years old, attest to at least seasonal
occupation by the Native American Mound
Builder culture.
o
·
1519 the
Spanish explorer Alonzo Pineda was the first documented European to visit,
staying long enough to map the island.
·
1699 Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville established a temporary settlement on the
island, which he named
o
"I
remained on the island, which I am naming Massacre because we found on it, a
spot where more than 60 men or women had been slain," Iberville wrote.
Research by later historians indicated that the skeletons were those of people
who had died in an epidemic. The island would keep that name for 12 years,
until residents persuaded Bienville to change it to
o
The settlement was a trading depot, unloading goods from
·
By
1712,
·
1717 A hurricane drove sand into the deep port, ending
·
1719 With
·
·
In
1783, a spanish grant was
recorded to Joseph Moro. At his death he willed this to his niece, Euphrosie L'May. A patent from
the
·
·
Throughout
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries people lived on
·
Most
of the local people were deeded fifty foot lots in exchange for quit claim
deeds. In 1885, we find quit claim deeds from Gillette, McNulty, Semmes, Austill, and Mallon to the Dauphin Island Improvement
Company. This was to be the first major developer and in 1910 became
incorporated as the Dauphin Island Company.
o
Local
people holding deed from the Dauphin Island Company are classified as having
"grandfather lots."Only one old grandfather property remains south of
o
In
1900, the
o
Both
of these properties eventually became Gulf Properties and this company was
transferred to Forney Johnston, in 1953.
o
Areas
such as Pass Drury and Silver Cay were added later by dredging and finger
filling the swamp land.
o
There
was a great deal of animosity between the developers and the native people.
Only a few held positive deeds. Among these were the Steiner and Sprinkle
Subdivisions.
§
The
Steiner property had been sub-divided and recorded in 1910.
§
John
Sprinkle had taken the
·
By
the early 1900s, the federal government owned nearly 1,000 acres around
o
It
was during these years that the name of Forney
Johnston first appears in probate court records.
·
In
1926 the federal government sold
·
By
1929 one company, Gulf Properties Corporation,
owned almost all of
o
Another
version, attributed to Frank Boykin, of how Gulf Properties acquired the island
appeared in a 1973 book by Edward Boykin, Everything's Made for Love.
Boykin met Breck Musgrove, of Jasper,
·
The
Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo began
on the island in 1929 under Frank Boykin’s leadership.
·
In
1950 the island had around 250 residents, a couple of small stores, daily
service by boat, and a one-room school that had opened in 1898. Recreational
fisherman had built several piers on the island.
·
The
Mobile Chamber of Commerce purchased
o
In
their deal with the Chamber, Boykin, Forney and their partners, now organized
as West Dauphin Corporation, held
onto the western most eight miles of the island.
o
The
income from the Chamber's sale of the lots went into a trust set up by the
Chamber at the Merchants National Bank. The terms of the Dauphin Island Trust Indenture set up the institutions to govern
the island and kept the income from the project tax-exempt. Under the trust,
the Chamber disbursed money for its ambitious building program.
o
In
these years it seemed that the Chamber intended to develop the island for all
Alabamians. On the west side of the island the Chamber constructed, for the
public, a $500,000 beach resort named Sand Dunes Casino, set on a one-mile
stretch of Gulf beachfront. This park was equipped with a fishing pier. At the
east end of the island the Chamber remodeled a former military building into a
recreation facility, calling it the Fort Gaines Club. The Chamber also began
the restoration of
o
For
the private use of property owners, the Chamber built the Isle Dauphine Club, equipped with a swimming pool, an eighteen-hole
golf course, and a clubhouse. The club was set on a mile of Gulf beach. The
Chamber also set aside another three miles of Gulf beach and several private
parks for the property owners.
·
Two
organizations were set up under the Dauphin Island Trust. These were the Dauphin Island Property Owners Association
and the
o
The
trust divided up the $6 million raised from land sales after the Chamber paid
its costs, seventy percent to the Property Owners Association and thirty
percent to the Park and Beach Board.
·
The
Chamber set up the Property Owners Association
as a nonprofit corporation governed by a nine-member board. The trust placed
three major tasks with the Association: develop a water system, construct a
public golf course, and develop parks, beaches and other recreation sites for
the use of owners of lots in its subdivisions.
o
In
1979 the Property Owners Association sold its water system to the newly
established Dauphin Island Water and
Sewer Authority. The Association still owns the
o
While
the trust required the Association to build a public golf course, the course
the Chamber opened was private. The
Development of Dauphin Island, Alabama, told how the island golf course
became private: "In 1954 the federal courts ruled the rights of owners of
semi- private golf courses to decide who could play and who could not
play....we decided to re-design the course and move it to the property
adjoining the Isle Dauphine Country Club which was of course a private
operation." The deed to the site of the Chamber's original course,
property that formerly belonged to the City of
·
The
Park and Beach Board was a public
board, unlike the Property Owners Association. Its three members serve six-year
terms, and each is recommended by the Mobile County Commission and approved by
the Governor. The Governor has always approved the Commissioners'
recommendations. Under the trust, the Board was charged with the development of
public parks, beaches and other community and public recreation facilities. The
Board was a "quasi state agency" structured so that the island would
be for all the state, open to everybody.
o
The
original public facilities included
o Today the Board owns property worth
over $200 million and operates a number of sites for the public: a campground,
the Audubon Bird Sanctuary,
o The Board has no budget from the
county or the state. The Board's income comes from fees it charges at its
campground, fishing piers and
·
The bridge to the mainland, Gordon Persons Bridge, was opened in 1955 and visits to the beach became an
easy day trip for Mobilians
o After World War II, local officials
approached the Folsom Administration with a plan for a bridge. Governor
"Big Jim" Folsom balked at the proposal, complaining that the tract
the Gulf Properties Corporation offered to donate for bridge construction was
insufficient. The Mobile Press Register quoted Folsom: "The Gulf
people own all but 40 acres of the island and the section which the city of
o
The
bridge to the island was a financial success, and the state eliminated the toll
in 1963.
o
The bridge was destroyed by Hurricane Frederic in 1979;
the community received $32 million to rebuild the bridge, in spite of warnings
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, because it would encourage
development.
·
In
1959 a Holiday Inn opened on the island, eleven years before the first chain
motel opened in
·
In
the 1970s, the Sand Dunes Casino was closed and in ruins, and the Fort Gaines
Club had burned. Neither facility was replaced, and in
1999, there were still no lifeguards, changing rooms, or bathrooms on the
island's pubic beach. Behind the loss of the public facilities lay the terms of
the Dauphin Island Trust.
·
In
1988 island residents voted to incorporate the City of
o
The
Board and the Association were often at odds with the new government.
·
In
1999 federal and state taxpayers spent about $1.3 million to build a man-made
sand dune on
o
The
Harbinger asked Susan
Rees of the Army Corps of Engineers what provision the Corps had made in the berm's design to allow the public access to the beach. Rees
said "none" because there was "no requirement for public
access." She added that local officials asked Alabama Attorney General
Bill Pryor for his approval of a berm constructed on
private land with public money. The Corps does not expect the artificial dune
to stop flooding for long, for its public notice described the project as
"an emergency protective berm."
·
The island that suffered $7 million in property damage
due to Frederic was host to over a quarter billion dollars in property by 2000.
o In 1980, after Hurricane Frederick,
the Wall Street Journal carried a page-one article about
o Since
2000, the barrier island has been struck by five hurricanes and has received
millions more in federal disaster aid.
o Hurricane
Katrina's storm surge devastated the island, wiping clean most of the island's
west end.
o In October 2008, island leaders
announced plans to pursue restoration of the island's east end where a few
hundred feet of beach has disappeared in recent decades. A preliminary report
said the project could cost up to $12.8 million.
·
The
town hired ERIS Inc., a Montgomery-based economic development consultantcy, for one-year at a cost of $125,000 to
initiate new economic activity, part of the town's long-term strategic plan
developed this year. Under one plan, the town would purchase and lease
undeveloped land on the western end of the island. A boat would ferry visitors
across the breach and booths for retailers and an entertainment pavilion would
be built on the other side. The "
·
The
island's west end has long been
vanishing. The west end is losing sand on the south side and gaining on the
north.
o A $1 million, taxpayer-funded protective
sand wall was constructed in front of the west end's "front-row"
houses in June 2000. The berm stood for 27 months
before Tropical Storm Isidore wiped it away in 2002.
o A sand berm
was built in 2007 at a cost of $3.6 million in an attempt to protect the Town
of Dauphin Island's infrastructure along Bienville Boulevard. The berm was wiped away by Gustav's storm surge in Sept. 2008.
FEMA decided not to fund rebuilding of the berm. – PR 12/4/08
·
The
west end beach is privately owned by either individual property owners or by
the private nonprofit Dauphin Island Property Owners Association, so it's
difficult to use public money on that land.
·
In
March 2007, Dauphin Island Property Owners Association members voted to to transfer to the town the 3½ miles of west side beach it had
owned since 1953, making it eligible for public beach restoration funds.
o Two property owners filed a lawsuit
shortly after the vote, claiming any sale or conveyance of the property would
be illegal since that deed restrictions bar the association from giving away
the property. Lawyers for both sides said that the case is being delayed until
a key report in a federal lawsuit over the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers'
dredging practices in the Mobile Bay ship channel is issued – PR 11/15/07
·
A
lawsuit by the Property Owners Association blaming west end beach erosion on
the U.S. Corps of Engineers' dredging practices in the Mobile Bay ship channel
has been pending in federal court since 2000.
o A federal judge approved a settlement
in 2006 that created a panel of four experts to study whether the corps had a
role in the beach erosion. The report is due Jan. 10, 2009.
·
The
idea of a public west end beach is part of a new strategic plan for the island,
authored by a Seattle-based consultant. The plan recommends developing the more
stable east end, while exploring other options for the west end, including an
end to development there, according to a draft of the plan.
·
In
June 2008,
·
In
2005 Hurricane Katrina created a pass in the center of the island, now measuring
almost a mile across and 9½ feet deep. Just after Katrina, the gap was only
half that wide. The new "middle" island that formed after Katrina now
seems to be sliding toward Petit Bois and away from
o Scientists initially believed that the
gap was closing, as happened after a quarter-mile-wide breach formed in
o The new island is roughly 7 miles
long, making it just slightly smaller than what's left of
o Petit Bois is part of the federal Gulf
Islands National Seashore, as are
·
The
West Dauphin Corporation, owned by
the descendants of Boykin and Johnston, owns the western most eight miles of
the island. Many of those parcels are now buried in the mile-wide pass. The
section that is under water was targeted for development by Riley Boykin Smith
a few years ago, though nothing came of the proposal. It is unclear how the
break might affect property rights, especially if the new island continues
moving away from the ownership plots outlined in county tax records. Smith
believes that the gap eventually will fill in, and he said that he and his
fellow property owners still have claim to the island. Those owners have been
paying taxes on their properties for years, and nearly all of them have leased
out mineral rights for natural gas exploration since the 1980s, according to
county records.
·
In
the 1970s some politicians wanted the state to purchase the West Dauphin
Corporation property for a public park. The attempt almost succeeded in 1978
when L. W. "Red" Noonan, then a state senator, introduced a bill to
fund the purchase. The most recent offer to open the west end to the public
came in 1996 when its owners offered to donate land for a public beach if the
county would build roads, water supply and sewer connections for two miles of
private development. The remaining six miles would be offered for sale to the
state or a conservation organization. The deal fell through when a citizens
group,
·
“When
Riley Boykin Smith
tried to have the Forever Wild Board acquire the extreme west end of Dauphin
Island, with the understanding he was going to develop the majority of the west
end, I told everyone, including him, that I would not support this action. He
was telling the board that if we didn't we would be, in essence, stopping the
deal, when, in reality, ADEM had violated their own procedural regs in even considering his permit request.” – Myrt Jones
McIntosh
(
·
British
Captain John McIntosh established a plantation at the present-day town of
·
Before
the chemical plants, McIntosh was a logging town. Olin Corp. arrived in 1952,
and Ciba-Geigy Corp. a short time later.
·
Olin
and Ciba are now Superfund
sites due to mercury and other chemical contamination
·
3,600
MOWA Choctaws live on 300-acres west of
·
Forty-five
families escaped the Choctaw Removal of 1830, remaining in north
·
In
the 1940s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided that these communities
scattered across three states did not qualify for federal government
recognition. A year later, however, Shell Oil Co. found oil on lands held by
Choctaw families in
·
·
Members
of the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians have long petitioned the federal government
to recognize them officially as an Indian tribe, an acknowledgment that would
make them eligible to receive millions of dollars in aid for education, health
care and economic development programs.
o In 1991, the Senate Select Committee
on Indian Affairs voted in favor of federal recognition for the tribe. But the
committee's decision was overturned by a pro-gaming alliance of the Mississippi
Band of Choctaw Indians' Tribal Chief Phillip Martin and former Poarch Band of
Creek Indians' Tribal Chairman Eddie Tullis.
o The MOWA submitted a petition to the
Bureau of Indian of Affairs such a document to the bureau in the early 1990s.
The bureau of Indian Affairs first denied the MOWA petition in 1997, and the
secretary of the interior refused to hear any further appeals in 1999.
o U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile, is
sponsoring a bill that would declare the MOWA as a federally recognized tribe.
The bill languishes in committee. Similar bills have failed in the past. – PR 7/2/07
o In July 2007 the MOWA Band of Choctaw
filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in
Mobile
Lakes
·
Big Creek
·
Cedar Creek
·
·
Three Mile Creek Lake is located at
Rivers
·
·
·
·
Parks
·
Bay Front Park is located in the
·
·
·
Chickasabogue Park at Chickasabogue
Creek in Eight Mile is an 1100 acre outdoor recreation facility and wildlife
refuge.
·
·
Dead Lake Marina includes RV and tent camping, cabin rentals,
lake fishing, river fishing, launch ramp, covered boat slip rentals, houseboat
dockage, bait and tackle, limited groceries and canoe rentals. Most of
the activities at the
·
Lusher Park is located on
·
Municipal (Langan) Park is located on
·
W. L. Holland Management Area
Revised
7/1/08
Text
Copyright 2008
Disclaimer: These Notes are not
original. They are complied from various
sources, primarily the Press-Register (PR),