Oakleigh Garden District

• Oakleigh Garden District Map
• Oakleigh Garden District Society
• The Oakleigh Venture Revolving Fund was launched in 2001. – PR 8/8/2004
  • It has received grants from the Fannie Mae Foundation and the Bedsole Foundation, according to Palmer Hamilton, a local attorney who spearheaded the fund along with other residents in Oakleigh. The idea is to revive abandoned, rundown houses, sell them and use the money to do it all over again. The fund members are volunteers and take on projects as the balance in their operating account allows. The fund has created almost $5 million of new or improved houses. Marine Street, the fund’s first targeted street, has been transformed into a vibrant part of the neighborhood. In 2005, the Bedsole Foundation, one of the OVRF’s original funding sources, asked the fund to expand its work to Mobile’s Central Business District.
  • The Oakleigh fund is an unincorporated subcommittee of the nonprofit Historic Development Commission. The nonprofit commission is separately incorporated from the closely related city agency of the same name. The Oakleigh fund has a separate board and has operated independently from the Historic Development Commission. The Mobile Historic Development Commission also handles the Mobile Revolving Fund.
  • The OVRF received $705,385 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2003. The money was earmarked for the Oakleigh fund by U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, who has ties to the fund’s president, Mobile lawyer and lobbyist Palmer Hamilton. The Oakleigh fund spent $438,113 paying off work that had been done earlier by another entity, Springhill in Oakleigh Partners. But under federal rules, the money couldn’t be spent on things done before Feb. 20, 2003, when Congress passed the law doling out the money, raising the question whether the money may need to be returned. – PR 12/23/07
• Oakleigh Mansion:  350 Oakleigh Pl. Started in 1833 by James Roper on a Spanish land grant, “Oakleigh” was named for the magnificent oaks around it.  Roper was a cotton trader who was hit by the Panic of 1837. Unable to repay the $20,000 he had borrowed to build the house, he sold it to his brother-in-law, who allowed him to live in it rent-free. The “T” shaped dwelling with elegant parlors and curved outside stairway from the brick terrace to front gallery was well suited for a semi-tropical climate. Many famous visitors, including President James Garfield were entertained here. It was included in the Historic American Buildings Survey and the National Register of Historic Places. Acquired by the city of Mobile in 1955. Now operated as a museum by the Historic Mobile Preservation Society
• Magnolia Cemetery: 1202 Virginia St. Founded in 1836, the yellow fever epidemics that filled Church Street Cemetery necessitated the new cemetery.  This 120-acre cemetery contains gravesites of early Mobile settlers and Confederate soldiers. Geronimo’s son is buried here.
• Washington Square
• 1867 Philips-Turley house at the corner of Charles and Palmetto.
• Blacksher Hall 1056 Government St. This 1901 Neo-classical mansion was designed by Mobile architect Rudolph Benz and is notable for its heavily ornamental detailing, grouped Ionic columns, elaborate cornice with swags and large front gable. The interior features a wide central hallway, 12 fireplaces and eight bedrooms, stained glass skylights and fine antiques. It was built for Charles Hearin.
• Bellingrath Carriage House: 1114 Government St., was a carriage house at 60 S. Ann St. that was part of the original Bellingrath family home. It was sold to Enoch Aguilera, one of the owners of the Berney/Fly Bed and Breakfast at 1118 Government St., who moved it in 2004, before it was damaged by several hurricanes. It is currently for sale – see Sharman Egan, Lagniappe, 12/4/07.
• Burgess-University of Mobile House. 1209 Government St. Since 1978 this fabulous house has been owned by the University of Mobile, serving as its president’s home. The elegant Renaissance Revival was built for a wealthy cotton factor in 1907. It was part of a tract developed by John Rapier and was designed by George B. Rogers.
• Tacon-Tissington-Jones House: 1216 Government St. The circa 1901, six-bedroom, three-bath home was purchased by a Birmingham couple for $511,200 in 2006. – PR2/21/06
• Paterson/Dean Estate: 1673 Government St. The 8,000-square-foot mansion on two acres was recently listed for sale at $1.5 million.
• A developer out of the Atlanta area, Marvin Hewitt Enterprises, planned to build a strip mall with a Texaco gas station and convenience store on Broad Street at Elmira Street. The company already has approval for a similar project on Spring Hill Avenue in the Old Dauphinway Historic District. The neighborhood association rallied enough opposition to convince the developer to abandon the plan in late July. – Egan, Lagniappe, 7/31/07
• The Oakleigh Venture Revolving Fund started a major revitalization effort on Marine Street in 2002 and far has restored almost 30 houses. Marine Street is Oakleigh’s oldest street, dating from the 1830s. The fund’s members try to use Carolina brick, which costs more but looks just like 150-year old brick. – PR 12/30/07
• Oakleigh Restaurants
  • Callaghan’s Irish Social Club: Woodrow Callaghan opened his club at the corner of Marine and Charleston streets in 1946. His descendants continued to operate it until 2002, at which point developer Wendell Quimby purchased and restored it. John Thompson and partners have operated it since then. – PR 8/3/07
  • Cortlandt’s
  • Cream & Sugar

Leinkauf Historic District

• The Leinkauf neighborhood, and Leinkauf Elementary School which opened in 1903, are named in honor of William H. Leinkauf, a Mobile merchant and banker who served on the Board of School Commissioners from 1865 until his death in 1901
• The Leinkauf Elementary School burned down in 1993, and was rebuilt.

Old Dauphin Way

• Source: Old Dauphin Way Association
• The Old Dauphin Way District is part of the Price and Espejo tracts, large Spanish land grants of the early 1800s.
• Very little development occurred in the area until 1830-1840. From then on frequent listings in Mobile city directories show residents on Spring Hill Road, Spring Hill Shell Road (now Old Shell Road) Dauphin, Common, Ann, Julia, and Lafayette Streets.
• Most of the older structures in the district are simple frame cottages which originally housed carpenters, florists, bar pilots, steamboat captains, and commission merchants. Grander houses were also built and can still be seen along Dauphin Street and Spring Hill Avenue.
• Espejo Street was name for Antonio Espejo and Catherine Street was named for his wife Catalina. Reed Avenue was named for W. A. Reed who lived on that street, and he later subdivided Gladys and Kenneth Streets, which were named for two of his children. 
• Towle House, built in 1874, faces South Hallett Street but has an address on Montauk Avenue. It was constructed for Amos Towle, who both lived and operated the Towle Institute, a boys’ school, from the house.
• Caroline Avenue is a three-block span of shot-gun board-and-batten cottages, residences of servants who worked in the big houses on Government Street. The Duffee Oak on Caroline Avenue is the first tree to have a protective preservation bill passed in the State Legislature.
• Three Gulf Coast cottages typify working-class residential architecture in the city: 20, 22 and 23 South Lafayette. 23 South Lafayette was constructed in 1852 for a ship’s carpenter and architect. Constructed in 1868, 20 South Lafayette was built for a steamship company clerk, and 22 South Lafayette, also constructed in 1868, was owned by a bookkeeper for a cotton factory.
• Monterey Street has a large planted median.
  • Anchoring the block at Catherine Street is the Shepard House, a fanciful Queen Anne constructed in 1897 by C. M. Shepard, a purchaser for the Gulf Mobile and Ohio Railroad.  This eighteen room home, with eleven fireplaces and four stained glass windows, was used for lavish entertaining.  His two daughters, Kate and Isabel opened a private boarding and day school in 1910.  The house was designed by architect George Franklin Barber and was believed to have been delivered from Tennessee in thirteen railroad cars.
• North Monterey Street & Fearnway are separate subdivisions of Fearn Realty, both developed in the first decade of the 20th-century. Houses on North Monterey are primarily American Foursquares which are classically detailed. Curved and divided to slow traffic and planted with oaks, Fearnway features more Bungalows. Originating in California in the early years of the 20th century, the Bungalow quickly became popular throughout the nation. The style, in a diluted form, continued to be built in Mobile through the 1930s.
• Reed Avenue was subdivided in 1911. It developed over a narrow period of time resulting in a concentration of Bungalows on the street. The Bungalows are, however, decorated in a variety of styles including Classical Revival and Arts and Crafts that produce visual variety style on the street.
• 1551 Dauphin is the design of C.L. Hutchisson, Jr., and is done in the Classical Revival style with a red tile roof. At 1555, 1557, and 1565 Dauphin are large two-story houses of varying designs, yet each is inspired by the Classic Revival. Anchoring the end of the block at 1569 Dauphin is a much earlier house constructed in 1869 in the Gothic Revival style.
• Magnolia Manor, 1654 Springhill Ave., is an Italiante townhouse begun in 1854 and finished in 1862 by Jebez Fellows, a merchant, who owned a clothing store on Water Street. In 1933, the 15 room house was purchased by Dr. Toxey and Maurine Haas. Magnolia Manor is now available for rental for social functions.
• Vincent-Doan House/Mobile Medical Museum: 1664 Springhill. Built circa 1826, it is Mobile’s oldest residential estate on its original site. It was the country home of Benjamin Vincent, owner of a steamboat that ran between Coden and New Orleans. It originally had an open first floor and a staircase on the west side that gave access to the second floor through the gallery, a feature typical of early cottages. Numerous alterations over the years have resulted in the removal of the staircase and enclosure of the first floor for additional living space. It now houses the Mobile Medical Museum.
• Trinity Episcopal Church 1900 Dauphin St. Mobile’s second Episcopal Church. Originally built in 1853, the Trinity Episcopal Church was located at the corner of St. Anthony and Jackson streets. Clarence L. Hutchisson was commissioned in 1945 to remove and rebuild the entire church, as designed by architects Willis and Dudley of New York, to its present location on Dauphin Street. According to Gould, the brick-by-brick re-built church retained the original English Gothic Revival style with an added basement. The original spire was destroyed by Hurricane Frederic and replaced with a synthetic material.
• Greene-Marston House, aka Termite Hall, 2000 Dauphin St.
  • Three distinct architectural styles are reflected in this house: The original 1-1/2 story cottage was built in the mid-1800s by the Greene family. This cottage was incorporated into the 2-1/2 story Victorian structure built by Martin Van Heuval in 1903. The cottage is now referred to as “the wing”. In 1910, the house was further remodeled by William Syson.
  • Termite Hall was purchased in 1919 by Mrs John Lawrence Rapier (Regina DeMouy Rapier), wife of the owner of the Mobile Register, to replace the DeMouy house lost by fire in 1917. Many of the Marston/Rapier/Demouy clan moved into the house.
  • Termite Hall got its name in the 1920s when the porch rails disintegrated, riddled by termites, which luckily never reached the main house.
  • Adelaide Marston Trigg (1918-2008) and Eleanor Marston Benz (born 1916) resided in Termite Hall and hosted dozens of artists, writers and intellectuals and fostered local culture. Trigg also co-founded The Haunted Book Shop. Eleanor was a librarian at McGill Institute for several decades after 1955.Eugene Walter wrote Delectable Dishes from Termite Hall. New Orleans author Helen Scully wrote In the Hope of Rising Again, loosely based on the life of her great-grandmother, Regina Rapier Marston. – PR10/13/08  Picture

Midtown

• The Loop: In the early 1900s, The “Loop” was the end of the trolley line. Patrons would get off the trolley and loop it around to return to town. For a nickel patrons could ride all day.
  • The Loop Group is a community action group for residents of the Loop — that section of Mobile from Holcombe Avenue, Senator Street, Pinehill Drive and Airport Boulevard to the cannon.
  • Loop Business Association.
• Little Flower Catholic Church
• Murphy High School, built 1926
• Bragg-Mitchell Mansion 1906 Springhill Ave. Originally built by Judge John Bragg in 1855, this beautifully restored pre-Civil War mansion demonstrates both Greek Revival and Italian influence. Fifteen-foot ceilings and a dramatic curved staircase contribute to the sense of splendor. Acquired 1925 by A. S. Mitchell, who restored the house and lived here forty years.
• Visitation Monastery and Academy 2300 Springhill Avenue. Founded in 1833, at the request of Bishop Michael Portier, sisters from the Visitation Monastery of Georgetown, D.C. established the academy for girls. The foundation served as a school until 1952 and now functions as a retreat house.
• Springhill Avenue Temple–Sha’arai Shomayim Umaskil El Dol (The Gates of Heaven and the Society of the Friends of the Needy) Congregation. 1769 Springhill Ave. Organized in Mobile in 1844, this Reform Jewish Congregation is the oldest in Alabama and one of the oldest in the United States. The building was built in 1955.
• From 1933 to 1949, the Oak Hills Country Club, once the Oak Hills Public Golf Course, was situated where the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center currently stands.
• “Pill Hill” was the name for the neighborhood near the Mobile Infirmary when many physicians lived
• The Village at Midtown is a proposed redevelopment of a 17 acre track which is currently Lakeside Park Apartments located on Bragg Avenue just North of the Mobile Infirmary, USA Women’s and Children’s Hospital and The Mitchell Cancer Institute into luxury, gated apartments.  Developer is Kenneth Payne of Pensacola, current owner of the apartments.
• Georgia Cottage 2558 Springhill Ave. Built circa 1840. Girlhood home of Augusta Evans Wilson.
• Siena Vista Drive is famous for its Christmas decorations
• Ashland Station on Old Shell Road
• Tacon Station on what is now the Illinois Central Railroad at Dauphin St. was named after railroad executive Henry Tacon
• The Graf Dairy Farm was located on 36 acres at the southeast corner of Dauphin Street and Sage Avenue. The Graf family operated a dairy there in the early 1900s. The Grafs had not wanted to sell or develop the land until recently. At least three separate investor/developers have some of the property under contract to purchase, contingent on rezoning. The Preserve at Midtown, a 96-unit condo project, is planned for 12 acres by Gavin Bender Sr. of Bender Real Estate and Robert Randall of Randall Investments. A drugstore (developed by Elcan & Associates) and a bank are planned for two parcels fronting Dauphin Street. The Grafs also own part of the shopping center across Sage Avenue. The 100-plus-year-old house owned by the Grafs located at the center of the property will be moved to the rear of the property.
• Public Safety Memorial Park: This 10-acre property was owned by the U.S. Department of the Interior and occupied by the U.S. Corps of Engineers since before World War II. In 1975, after the Corps of Engineers moved to a new building on St. Joseph Street it was offered to the City of Mobile for public park and recreation use. It is subject to reversion of ownership to the United States if it is not used for the purpose for which it was obtained. The Corps of Engineers kept a small portion of the property located on the southwest corner of the park, where a small building and radio tower for field operations are located. Thirty-three structures were removed; three remained to house the Mobile Recreation Department and the Parks Department. The park was referred to as the old Corps of Engineers but, in 1979, it was named “Booth Park” for a Mobile Police Officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty. In 1990 it was deemed that the park should be called, “Public Safety Memorial Park” as a tribute to all of the Police Officers and Firefighters who died in the line of duty serving the City of Mobile. To date, only three phases of the a five-phase renovation plan presented to the Federal Government have been completed. In addition to the above noted landscaping, there is one-half mile of jogging/walking trails around the park. “Your P.A.R.K.” is a renovation program for the park.

Midtown Businesses

• “Society Shell”: Founded in 1946, Griffith Shell at the intersection of Ann and Government Streets features “full service” pumps. Tom Perez wrote a play named “Society Shell”
• The 19^th Hole was a bar on Old Shell Road
• Widemire’s Old Dutch Ice Cream Shoppe at Old Shell Road and Florida Street was founded by Edwin Widemire, who retired in 1998 and died in 2006.

Midtown Restaurants

• The Dew Drop Inn: 1808 Old Shell Road, moved to its current location in 1937; famous for its hot dogs
• Butch Cassidy’s: 60 S. Florida St.
• Chuck’s Place: 2503 Old Shell Road
• Queen G’s Café: 2518 Old Shell Road

South Mobile

• Built primarily in the 1930s-1960s, many south Mobile neighborhoods have been in decline since the closing of Brookley Air Force Base in 1964.

Down the Bay

• James M. Seals, Jr. Park (renamed from Texas Street Park in 2004) and James Seals Community Center (with its Mighty Marching Tigers band) are named in honor of James M. Seals, Jr.
• St. Martin de Porres Hospital , 735 South Washington Ave: The hospital was established by the Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile in 1947. Segregation prevented African American Physicians from admitting patients to the Mobile City Hospital. The current building was erected in 1950. The hospital was named for St. Martin de Porres, who was born in 1597 in Lima, Peru. The son of a Spanish nobleman and a freed black slave, de Porres cared for the sick and many cures were attributed to him. With integration, the hospital closed in 1971. In 1976, it was re-opened as a nursing facility, Allen Memorial Home in dedication to Bishop Edward Allen, the fifth Catholic Bishop of Mobile.
• Naman’s Food Store was started on South Broad Street in 1955.  It closed in 2005 and became Manning’s Marketplace.
• Ladas Pharmacy, 1050 S. Broad was started in 1959 by Louis Ladas
• South Bay Apartments are owned by Summit Asset Management in Montgomery

Maysville

• Frank W. Boykin Homes, , and R.V. Taylor Plaza are public housing projects near Maysville

Birdville

• “Thomas James Homes” housing project was the proper name for Birdville which was built just outside of Brookley Air Force base to provide relief for the housing shortage. The development consisted of a series of interwoven curving concrete streets named after various birds, hence the nickname Birdville. It is located near Michigan Ave. and I-10.

Farnell

Mertz

• Mertz Station came into being in the 1800s as a railroad stop at which farmers from Dog River to Cottage Hill could load their produce onto freight cars for shipment into Mobile.
• Mertz Elementary School was demolished in 2001.
• Zion Baptist Church was started in 1848 by Mertz’ pioneer families – Farnells, Rowells, Lundys, Yeagers, Pollards, Southhalls – PR 8/31/08
• Holcombe Avenue, once a commercial strip, has deteriorated. Holcombe Avenue in conjunction with Halls Mill Road, was the original 1926 U.S. 90 route through Mobile before Government Boulevard to the west was constructed.
• The Carmelite Monastery is on Dauphin Island Parkway, surrounded by a tall concrete wall topped with barbed wire. In 1943, four Carmelite nuns from Philadelphia came to Mobile and settled on the Holcombe Estate and were the first nuns to inhabit the Monastery of St. Joseph and St. Teresa. It contains the simple Chapel of the Infant Jesus.
• Tiny Diny, 2159 Halls Mill Road, was established in 1939. It moved across the street from its original location in 1984. It was owned by “Miss Trudy” Shackelford from 1980 until she retired in 2007. She has leased it to Ron Casciano, a veteran restaurateur.
• Yen Restaurant, a Vietnamese Restautant, was started by the late Yen Le and is run by his family.
• Osman’s Restaurant
• The Four Strong Winds Coffee House was on Holcombe Ave.

Navco

• Gulf Manor was developed in the late 1950s, lies at the end of Navco Road, just east of Luscher Park and its boat launch. In 2000, Census figures showed about 600 people living there. It suffered severe flooding during Hurricane Katrina. – PR 8/26/07

Crestview

• Crestview subdivision, south of U.S. 90, just east of Demetropolis Road on the southwestern edge of Mobile, was first developed with seven lots in 1955 and now has over 500 homes. The original map was signed by officials of Skyland Development Co., David D. Roberts, vice president, and Riley Smith, secretary. Crestview homes, some of which sold originally for under $20,000, are now in the range of $119,900 to a high of $198,000, with an average price of $147,000. – PR 11/18/07 www.crestviewneighbor.com

Dauphin Island Parkway (DIP)/Dog River

• Historic Parks on Mobile Bay’s waterfront included Arlington Park, Bayfront Road, and Monroe Park.
  • Frascati Park, with its summer theater, concerts and bathing, was destroyed by a storm in 1893.
  • Monroe Park was one of the centers of Mobile’s social life within the city but fell into disuse in the 1940’s.
  • The streetcar ran from Crichton, through Mobile, to Monroe Park.  The streetcar line was ended in 1940.
  • In the 1990s, it was proposed that Monroe Park be sold to the city for recreation and the possible site of what became Hank Aaron Stadium, but these were rejected in favor of industrial use. Alabama State Docks bought Monroe Park and plans on building a rail yard there to support a shipping container facility at nearby Choctaw Point.
  • Fort Sidney Johnston, a Confederate fort which was never completed due to material shortages, was unearthed in Monroe Park in 2003
• Bayfront Park: In 2003, The Alabama State Port Authority, required to provide public waterfront access as part of the environmental impact agreement for the Choctaw Point Terminal, proposed a 41-acre park at Arlington Point just south of the Coast Guard base in Brookley. – PR 12/19/07, Sharman Egan, Lagniappe, 6/19/07
  • Facing criticism that the state docks’ container terminal and railyard development at the former site of Monroe Park would rob residents of their last hope for meaningful public access to Mobile Bay, Lyons in 2003 announced plans to create a new park for the city centered around Arlington Point. The plan was applauded by community leaders who have seen much of the city’s 30 miles of waterfront devoted to industry.
  • The Alabama State Port Authority plans a public park by late 2008 or early 2009 on more than 20 acres just east of Brookley Industrial Complex on Mobile Bay, part of 46 acres it bought for $1.3 million from the Mobile Airport Authority.
  • The park does not include Arlington Point — a key element of the plan the Port Authority discussed as early as 2003. That 15-acre, man-made spit of land juts into the bay between Brookley and the McDuffie Coal Terminal. The U.S. Army owns the land, and the Airport Authority has about 30 years left on a lease of part of the property. The plan to include Arlington Point was maintained during a series of public meetings in early 2005. However, in October 2005, $2.5 million in improvements to an existing dock facility at Arlington Point was included as part of a package of incentives used to lure the EADS tanker aircraft assembly center to Brookley Field. That project, plus a Coast Guard presence on Arlington Point, have tied up the Arlington Point property
  • The docks will use some of the land it purchased to replace wetlands it destroyed in developing its container terminal at Choctaw Point.
  • Lyons said the park will have a boardwalk winding through wetlands, and could eventually include walking trails, gazebos, kayak launches and a parking area. Plans for a pier included in the park plan developed by Spectrum & Associates are uncertain, he said.
  • In addition to its $1.3 million to buy the Airport Authority land, the state docks would spend about $2 million to develop the park, Port Authority officials said, and another $5 million to create the new wetlands, a project headed by Thompson Engineering.
  • Bayfront Park Rendering (PR)
• Fort Whiting Armory, 1630 S. Broad, was built in 1938. It has been used by a number of Mardi Gras societies. Home of the Alabama National Guard unit, it underwent a $6 million renovation in 2003.
• When Europeans first settled in the Dog River area, they only built summer homes. The first residents of this area were the Rochon brothers. They bought a brick kiln from a man named Olivier, and made their money by making bricks. It was not until the last one hundred years that residents lived by the river yearlong.
• The Dog River Cotton Factory was built in the 1850s and burned after the Civil War
• Early residents of the Navco/Ventia Road area include the Legere and Farnell families
• The Alba Club was founded in 1903. It is named in honor of Peter Francis Alba, Indian fighter with Robert E. Lee, Confederate cavalry captain, founder of the Mobile Humane Society
• Mobile Yacht Club was organized in the 1840s (earlier called the Mobile Regatta Club), and began holding large regattas on the Eastern Shore which attracted racing yachts and high stakes from all along the Gulf Coast. The club’s membership suffered during reconstruction, but by the 1880s, Mobile yachtsmen had reorganized their club and sold stock to build a clubhouse on a newly acquired plot on the Mobile River just opposite downtown. A small launch ferried members from the foot of St. Francis Street to the new club. In 1897 a new building was designed by New Orleans architect, Thomas Sully but was destroyed in the 1906 hurricane. At the end of 600-foot wharf at Monroe Park, Mobile Yacht Club built another lavish building. (Picture) After WWI, the club moved to the Eastern Shore. In 1940, just north of the mouth of Dog River, the club built a neat two-story house that served well for more than 30 years. After Hurricane Frederick in 1979, the current building was constructed.
• Sources: Mary Eddins, “A Pictoral Oral History of Dog River”

D.I.P. Restaurants

• Nan Seas, 4170 Bayfront Road, had been in business since the 1940’s but closed after Hurricane Katrina. The owner, Willis Robinson, plans to reopen in the former Lakeside Lodge on Cody Road near Airport Boulevard. – PR 9/16/07
• Grand Mariner Marina and Mariner Restaurant

Riviere Du Chien

• There is only one entry by land into the community, along Riviere du Chien Road, which runs south from Halls Mill Road.
• The Linksman Golf Course opened in 1972 and was originally known as St. Andrews. It was bought in 1988 by Ft. Walton Beach-based Edwin Watts Golf, which was founded in 1968. It closed in 2005.
• The city of Mobile built a bridge connecting the Lipscomb Landing neighborhood and the larger residential area along Riviere du Chien Road
• Hippie Beach is an area on Hall’s Mill Creek about a mile northwest of where the creek meets Dog River which became an infamous teenage hangout. The land is owned by Creekline, Inc., whose representatives Grubb & Ellis/Peebles & Cameron said they will prosecute any tresspassers. It is off Shipyard Road near the Cypress Shores community, which is south of Hall’s Mill Creek. – PR 7/14/08,7/15/08

Campground

• Confederate troops who protected Mobile were encamped here but abandoned it in April, 1865. After the Union troops entered the city, many of the recently freed slaves settled in the outlying districts of Mobile. The landowners, mostly white, built rental housing on small plats for the working class African Americans who lived in the area. Although an 1868 survey map references the Campground and indicates an early plan for development, deeds from various landowners reveal that development actually progressed between 1888 and 1906.
• Campground continued to grow steadily throughout the early 20th century. Largely an African-American working class neighborhood, a professional middle class including doctors, dentists, businessmen, schoolteachers, nurses, secretaries and postal carriers emerged and residents lived harmoniously intermingled. Some notable prosperous individuals worked and owned businesses along Davis Avenue and in the downtown area, including Dr. James A. Franklin. After the end of segregation, Davis Avenue and other areas declined economically as numerous businesses and residents relocated to other areas of the city. Davis Avenue was renamed Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue in 1986 and since that time, community and civic leaders have sought to revitalize the area.
• The Campground consists of roughly 10 city blocks, bordered on the north by Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, east by North Ann Street, south by St. Stephens Road and west by Rylands Street. While some distinctive bungalows, traditional cottages, shotgun houses and neo-classically inspired residences are present in the district, the majority of dwellings are cohesively small and vernacular in character. The buildings were constructed between the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, and in most cases were rental property owned by white landowners. The Due to the fact that the buildings within the Campground were rental property, many of them remain unaltered and lend the district its architectural flavor. Campground was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
• The block bounded by Michael Donald Avenue, Ann Street, Spring Hill Avenue and Old Shell Road, dominated by The Oaks apartments and a nearby convenience/liquor store, has been targeted by Mobile police as “the heart of the beast” of area crime including drugs and prostitution. A police initiative, undertaken with various city agencies, is targeting the neighborhood for rehabilitation with increased police patrols and prostitution stings  combined with neighborhood beautification efforts and crackdowns on eyesore properties. – PR 7/6/08  

Toulminville

• Toulminville began a small settlement on the property of Harry Toulmin. Toulminville was along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad northwest of Mobile.
• During the Irish potato famine in the 1840’s, many Irish (including the McNulty’s, McAndrews, McDonoughs, McDonalds and the Reynolds etc.) immigrated and staked their lots as farmers in Toulminville.
• In World War II, Toulminville had become an upper-middle class suburb, with many affluent neighborhoods built along Stanton and Summerville Streets.
• In 1956 Toulminville was annexed into the city of Mobile.
• In the 1960s, white flight issues caused by desegregation and an upsurge of crime on Mobile’s northside (highlighted by an incident in 1966 in which a white nun was raped by a black man at Catholic Cemetery on Davis Avenue, now Martin Luther King Avenue) caused the district which was majority white in 1960 to become nearly 80% black by 1975, and Toulminville was the bedrock of the district which elected John LeFlore, a Mobile NAACP leader who became the first black elected to the legislature in Mobile County. The final holdout against white flight were neighborhoods along Stanton and Summerville Street which finally became nearly all black in the 1980s, though they remained affluent areas. Toulminville had a serious crime problem during most of the 1980s and 1990s.
• Leflore High School (originally Toulminville High School) is a performing arts magnet school. As Toulminville High School, it was an all-white school during segregation times, and remained majority white until the 1970s, and in 1979 was renamed LeFlore High School in honor of John LeFlore. In the 1980s, it was converted into a magnet school.
• Roger Williams Housing Project is “one of Mobile’s most notorious”
• Trinity Gardens is an impoverished black neighborhood bordering the northwestern reaches of Toulminville
• Mobile’s Catholic Cemetery, established in 1848, is located on 150 acres in Toulminville. It has fallen into disrepair and is currently the object of restoration by the Friends of the Catholic Cemetery, Historic Mobile Preservation Society and the Archdiocese of Mobile. The Friends of the Catholic Cemetery’s goals are to establish a perpetual care trust fund to clear growth, establish a memorial fund to improve fencing around the cemetery, repair monuments for those who have no known living descendant. Admiral Raphael Semmes and Father Abram Joseph Ryan and buried here   

Africatown

• 1860 The Clotilde was the last known ship to arrive in the Americas with a cargo of slaves.
  • Timothy Meaher was a Mobile shipyard owner in business with his brothers Burns and James Meaher, all of whom were from Maine. Meaher bet friends $100,000 that he could defy the federal government and bring a ship of slaves to Alabama from Africa. Maine Capt. William Foster, with his topsail schooner Clotilde, was hired by Meaher for the voyage. Meaher had built the Clotilde in Mobile in 1856.
  • o   In Ghana, West Africa, near the present city of Tamale in 1859 the tribes of Africa were engaged in civil war, and the prevailing tribes sold the members of the conquered tribes into slavery. The village of the Tarkbar tribe near the city of Tamale was raided by Dahomey warriors, and the survivors of the raid were taken to Whydah, now the People’s Republic of Benin, and put up for sale. 110 Africans were sold to Foster for $100 each at Whydah and taken to the United States on board the Clotilde. Their arrival marked the last known instance of captured Africans being brought to the United States as slaves.
  • By the time the Clotilde arrived in Mobile, federal authorities, having heard about the illegal scheme, were on the lookout for it. Captain Foster entered Mobile Harbor on the night of July 9, 1860. He transferred his slave cargo to a riverboat and sent them up into the canebrake to hide them. He then burned his schooner and sunk it.
  • The Africans were distributed to those having an interest in the Clotilde expedition including the three brothers, the ship’s captain, and others in south Alabama, with 32 settling on the Meaher property at Magazine Point, three miles north of Mobile.
  • In a federal court case in 1861, US v. Burns Meaher, Timothy Meaher, and John Dabey,  the three were charged with importing 103 natives of Africa for the purpose of slavery in the United States on the schooner Clotilde. The case was dismissed because the Federal Court could not prove the involvement of Timothy Meaher in this plot, but there was a strong implication that the case was dismissed because of the beginning of the Civil War.
  • Five years later, the Civil War over, the slaves were free. After selling or releasing most of the Africans, Meaher took the 33 that he had set aside for himself and freed them near Mobile.
  • The freed slaves first wanted to go back to Africa. They took jobs and pooled their resources but could not amass enough money for the trip. They then asked Meaher for some of his land, but he refused. They continued to save money and by 1870 earned enough to buy from Meaher the land that became Africatown. – PR11/25/07
  • The freed slaves formed their own community, which became known as Africatown. For decades they continued speaking their native tongue, had disputes arbitrated by their tribal chieftain, Charlie Poteete, and had their illnesses treated by the African doctor, Jabez. Up until World War II, AfricaTown remained a rather distinct community in Mobile County. Some descendants of those who came on the slave ship continued to speak African languages into the 1950s.
• In her “Historic Sketches of the South” Emma Langdon Roche, a Mobile schoolteacher and illustrator, interviewed the former slave Cudjo Lewis (d. 1934), who eventually became known as the last surviving Clotilda slave, and eight other Clotilda captives
• The AfricaTown Community Mobilization Project was formed in February 1997 with the purpose of establishing an AfricaTown Historical District, and encouraging the historical restoration and development of the site. The center property consists of two donated statues, trailers scarred by Hurricane Katrina and a cemetery overgrown with grass and weeds taller than the faded tombstones. The center’s land was donated by Buchman & Leacy Real Estate Co. in May 2000. The Mobile Housing Authority in 2001 gave $245,900 to the Welcome Center to renovate the property. Since receiving that money, the nonprofit organization has taken in less than $25,000 annually. – PR 11/25/07
• Author Sylviane Diouf wrote Dreams of Africa in Alabama about the Clotilda and Africatown
• The wooden shanty shack town called Happy Hill was bulldozed and a brick housing project (Josephine Allen) was built. The Happy Hill community is contained by Telegraph Road, I-165 and Bay Bridge Road and a rail road. Across Meaher Avenue is Glendale School.

Crichton

• From the reminiscences of J.C. Ashbee, Press-Register, 4/29/1999:
• Crichton started on the east at Florida Street, the city limit of Mobile at that time, where the pavement ended and the dirt road began. The community stopped on the west at the foot of Spring Hill. The north boundary was the cotton mill on Bayshore Avenue. The south boundary would have been about where Airport Boulevard is now, but then it was named Grant Street.
• In the mid-1820s, a group of Napoleonic refugees established themselves in Demopolis as a “vine and olive society” to grow grapes and olive trees, but the crops did not do well there. Some of the refugees returned to Mobile and settled in what is now Crichton, and on Spring Hill. An 1830 surveyor’s map of Spring Hill showed “Napoleonville” along “Spring Hill Road.” The area was also called “Four Mile Post” because of its distance from the Mobile County Courthouse.
• Kiah B. Sewell came to Mobile from Maine to engage in cotton trading. In 1845 he began the building of one of the city's most pretentious houses on what is now Mobile St. on the property that was acquired by University Military School. Sewell was a rabid abolitionist. On the day that Alabama seceded from the Union Sewell, in his position on the school board, left the dinner cooking on the stove, the lamps burning and boarded his carriage. He left his home and never returned here." – PR 6/21/1954
• During the late 1880s, Hugh Randolph Crichton moved to Mobile from Warrenton, N.C. He acquired a tract of land along Spring Hill Avenue, which before 1900 he had subdivided. He was instrumental in getting a post office in the area, and when it opened the area was officially named Crichton by the U.S. Post Office to honor Crichton’s efforts. He was also postmaster of the facility.
  • Anne Randolph Crichton, the last direct descendant of Hugh Randolph Crichton, was known for her long ownership of Chinaberry, a historic cottage with an elaborate garden on Old Shell Road at the base of Spring Hill.
• Camp Coppinger, on the site of the cotton mill, was where US troops gathered in 1898 to fight in the Spanish-American War
• L.G. Ashbee opened a barber shop in Crichton, offering a shave and a haircut for two bits. Every customer had his own shaving mug. He opened Ashbee Cleaners. A member could come in, take his suit off, sit down in the barrel (an enclosed section of the room) and read a magazine while the suit was being spotted and pressed for 50 cents.” The two-story brick building that housed the Ashbee businesses, at 2815 Spring Hill Ave. next to the Crichton Elementary School, is still in use.
• The Brown-White drugstore was in Crichton. One of the physicians with an office in Crichton was Dr. A.M. Cowden, who delivered babies in Mobile County in the 1930s. His flat fee of $35 covered pre-natal care, delivery and post-natal care.
• The ice factory and the ice house were on Bayshore Avenue. Everyone had an icebox that needed 10 or 25 pounds of fresh ice every morning. If you were lucky, you had a coal furnace and had coal delivered by the same company to your home.
• Two streetcars came from downtown Mobile to Crichton each day and on to the turnaround near the top of Spring Hill. People who worked downtown rode the streetcars. Very few people took their cars to work.
• The cotton mill was on Bayshore Avenue, north of Spring Hill Avenue. One of the superintendents there was John Graddick, whose grandson Charles Graddick became an attorney general of Alabama. ‘The cotton mill main buildings became the offices of Teague Brothers Transfer and Storage, and Teague Brothers Carpet Sales & Service.
• Four churches that anchored the community: Methodist, Baptist, Catholic and Assembly of God. Three are still here: Spring Hill Avenue United Methodist, which was moved but is still in Crichton, Spring Hill Avenue Baptist, and St. Catherine’s Catholic Church. The three-story building that housed the Sunday school for the Methodist church now houses a landmark business in the community, Deuel Drug Store.
  • Springhill Baptist Church was built in 1908. The church reached its peak membership in the early 1960s, with a resident membership of 1,020 and 962 enrolled in Sunday School. Many of its families were connected with Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile until its closure in 1969. Membership and attendance greatly declined because of the closure and the geographical shift in the population to other areas of Mobile. – PR 5/31/2007
• Crichton Elementary School was built in 1916 on Spring Hill Avenue. A new elementary school to replace the 1916 structure was built near Phillips Preparatory School on Old Shell Road.
• Oddfellows ‘Napoleonville Lodge’ building is on Mobile Street off Spring Hill Avenue.
• Mack’s Wheelhouse Restaurant on Spring Hill Avenue, which once housed the Crichton Country Club, was demolished in 2003.
• Crichton Leprechaun: WPMI-TV reported in 2006 that people in the Crichton community were claiming to have seen a leprechaun in a tree. The WPMI Crichton Leprechaun Video was distributed by YouTube to over 4 million people, and was covered by media from The New York Times to Canadian television. The sketch of the alleged leprechaun drawn by a resident of Crichton, auctioned by WMPI staff, drew a top bid of $1,100 on eBay. The Crichton Leprechaun had its own entry on myspace.com and his own Web site, where one could buy T-shirts.
• Critchton Restaurants
  • Roshell’s, 2904 Springhill Ave.

Springhill

• Spring Hill was a resort as early as Spanish colonial times
• After Alabama became a state, Methodist and Presbyterian Scots-Irish from the Carolinas settled in Spring Hill
• Union Church was built on what is now the southeast corner of Springhill Cemetery
• Spring Hill College:  Founded in 1830. The first institution of higher learning in Alabama. Federal troops bivouacked here after Mobile fell in 1865. The college has been under the Jesuit Fathers since 1847.
  • Stewartfield, on the campus of Springhill College, was built by Roger Stewart in 1845
  • Sodality Chapel  was built in 1850
  • West Building: built by James Hutchisson in 1885
  • St. Joseph’s Chapel was rebuilt in 1909.
• Stein’s Reservoir: Albert Stein was a Prussian civil engineer who designed city water systems in Virginia and Tennessee before settling in Mobile.  He built the municipal reservoir on top of Spring Hill, and gave his name to the subdivision and street.
• Springhill Cemetery was established in 1844. It contains the graves of early Springhill residents such as Albert Stein, Dr. Monte Moorer (the only mausoleum in the cemetery), and others
  • The Toulmin Family Burial Grounds were moved from Toulminville to Springhill Cemetery in 1964.
  • Early settlers include Archibald Broun, John Marston
• The Mobile & Spring Hill Railroad was chartered in 1860 and completed in 1862. It ran 8 miles from Spring Hill to Mobile. It was not a steam railroad, using only small, horse-drawn city carts.
• St. Paul’s Episcopal Church 4051 Old Shell Rd. was completed in 1861. Renowned Richard Hooker Wilmer, Second Bishop of Alabama, only bishop consecrated in Episcopal Church, C.S.A., a founder of Mobile Infirmary and Wilmer Hall, ministered here 1865-1900.
• Wilmer Hall was founded for the orphans of the Civil War in 1864 by Episcopal Bishop Richard H. Wilmer.
  • It was first located in Tuscaloosa, because Mobile was believed to be under imminent attack from the Union Navy. The Home was moved to Mobile in 1867 and was located adjacent to St. John’s Episcopal Church in the East Church Street Historical District. The congregation of St. John’s later moved to a new church building in midtown Mobile and the old church was leveled. However, the former Church Home is still standing in British Park. Through most of its history, deaconesses of the Episcopal Church staffed the Church Home.
  • Officials decided to move the facility to Spring Hill and the first buildings were completed in 1914. More buildings were added, including four resident cottages, in 1968.
  • The programs and services at Wilmer Hall evolved to meet the needs of children who were unable to live with their natural families, due to neglect, abuse, or other reasons. Over the years, the residents have attended public schools. However, as the staff received more children behind in their schoolwork or finding it difficult to adjust to public schools, they recognized a need for an on-campus facility.
  • The Murray School was founded in 1992. The school offers classes in the grades 3 to 11. The Alabama Department of Education licenses it as a private school.
  • Wilmer Hall Children’s Home in Mobile is getting out of the business of housing abused and neglected children who are wards of the state. Wilmer Hall still plans to help abused and neglected children but will do so entirely with private money. Plans remain in the works for the types of private residential programs that the hall will run. The hall may become a treatment center for single mothers and children who are victims of abuse. – PR 9/26/07
• Freed slaves formed a settlement named Sandtown on what is now Springhill Avenue Extension
• McGregor Avenue was called “Maidens’ Lane” for the spinsters that lived on it.
• Mary B. Austin School
• St. Paul’s Episcopal School
• Springhill Presbyterian Church was organized in 1944.
• Langan Municipal Park
• Lavretta Park was renovated in 2003.  The pavilion was completed in 1973. It is named after Constantine L. Lavretta, mayor of Mobile from 1984 to 1987.
• Country Club Village and Spring Hill Manor subdivisions were built in 1943
• The adjacent neighborhoods of Llanfair and South Yester Oaks cooperate through membership in the Llanfair-Yester Oaks Homeowners Association.They lie between Airport and Dauphin St. east of McGregor Ave. – PR 7/30/08
  • William Owen Jr. and partner Riley Smith developed the Llanfair subdivision in 1957 on land owned since 1918 by his father, William Owen Sr.  Owen also developed McGregor Square shopping center.
  • The residential area known as Yester Oaks, which included South Yester Oaks as a later phase, was developed in the late 1950s by O.A. Evans, and Virgil Harden, along with prominent Spring Hill resident William Perdue.
• Investors from Oxford, Miss., and Johnny Roberts of Rob erts Brothers Inc. paid $850,000 for 1.5 acres on Old Shell Road and Shepard Lane near Bit & Spur Road in Spring Hill, and plan to develop high-end residences there. Josh Greer, a Mobile native residing in Beverly Hills, Calif., and his family were the sellers of the former auto repair shop site. – PR 4/1/07
• Early Springhill Residents
• The W. T. Henderson house was originally located at the corner of Old Shell Road and McGregor. It was later moved and rebuilt.
• Carolina Hall at 7 Yester Place was built by affluent cotton merchant William A. Dawson in Spring Hill in 1840. He named the home after his native state.
• The Village of Springhill  is a non-profit neighborhood improvement organization started in March 2006.
  • Dover Kohl planners were hired by The Village of Spring Hill & Partners of Coral Gables, Fla, to a master plan and plan changes for three major intersections in Spring Hill: Old Shell Road and McGregor Avenue; Museum Drive and McGregor; and Bit & Spur and Old Shell roads.  The planners’ ideas include sidewalks everywhere, a clock tower at Bit & Spur and Old Shell, a roundabout at Museum and McGregor, a gas station that doesn’t look like a garage at Old Shell and McGregor and on-street parking along Old Shell Road. – PR 11/18/07
  • The group has raised more than $1 million in grant money and other donations for improvements and planning. The group has landed two sizable state grants: $300,000 from the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs to hire an urban planner and start a plan and a $379,000 Transportation Enhancement Grant to build sidewalks on Old Shell Road. The city and state leaders have also pledged support. Mayor Sam Jones said the city would commit about $113,000 to The Village of Spring Hill for sidewalks to be installed on Old Shell Road from University Boulevard to Interstate 65.  Gina Gregory, District 7 city councilwoman, put aside about $200,000 from her share of capital improvement funds to upgrade the intersection of McGregor Avenue and Old Shell Road. – PR 7/1/2007
  • Realtor Johnny Robert’s townhome project may be the first development to incorporate some of Dover Kohl’s ideas. The owner of Roberts Brothers and two partners are planning The Madison townhomes are on the corner of Old Shell and Bit & Spur. – PR 11/18/07
  • The next step for Spring Hill is zoning reform. Dover Kohl will develop new form-based coding, which will be presented to city planners. The form-based code targets specific changes to the current city building code, such as building structures closer to the street for walkability, new parking and shared-parking rules, new storm water requirements and the ability to build multiple-story structures. – PR 11/18/07
  • The village’s new master plan has yet to clear the city’s zoning and planning approval process. The Village will submit its master plan for planning approval immediately, according to Linda St. John, president of the group. – PR 1/13/08
  • The Village of Spring Hill’s revitalization plan was challenged by a 13,000-square-foot CVS Pharmacy at the southwest corner of Old Shell Road and McGregor Avenue being developed by the Mitchell Company, who refused the Village concept of placing parking spaces behind the building. The City Council eventually unanimously approved a five-month commercial building moratorium in the planned areas of the Spring Hill community. “If citizens bring us an issue like this again, they need to bring us lunch,” Councilman Clinton Johnson said.  – PR 1/13/08, 1/23/08
    • The board of directors for the Mobile Area Association of Realtors had sent a letter to the City Council opposing the moratorium. Agents from some real estate companies including LLB&B Real Estate and Roberts Brothers presented the council with petitions favoring the moratorium. Board treasurer Melissa Morrissette of LLB&B Real Estate said that she was ill and missed the meeting during which the letter was approved. “If it had been known there was to be a vote, I’m sure other people would have wanted to be present,” she said. “I think it’s very controversial.” Lee Metzger, a Realtor board member, said, “We don’t think moratoriums are a good way to accomplish” the Village group’s goals. The board voted unanimously to oppose the moratorium, Metzger said. – PR 1/22/08
  • Business owners spoke out against proposals that would call for buildings with a minimum of two stories and a maximum of three, 15-foot-wide sidewalks in some areas and less space for parking in front of businesses. – PR 4/23/08, 4/27/08
  • A compromise was reached making the new code requirements optional. The code passed the Planning Commission and will now go before the City Council. City planners are educating the staff on the new, form-based codes and talking with planners from other cities who have enforced similar codes. Montgomery, which adopted what it calls a smart code in 2007, also used Dover Kohl to help write its smart code, which is mandatory downtown and optional in the rest of the city.  – PR 5/25/08, 6/20/08
• Sources: Springhill – A Special Place by Emily Staples Hearin

Springhill Homes

• Palmetto Hall is owned by the Jay Altmayer family
• Roe Place on Myrtlewood Lane was owned by Bart Chamberlain

Springhill Restaurants Etc.

• The Brick Pit, Old Shell Road
• Carpe Diem Coffee and Tea Co. at 4072 Old Shell Road was started by Jackson, Tenn., native Tomi Sue Rusling and her late husband, Van, in 1995. It sells its branded coffee at the store and online (www.springhillcoffeeroasters.com.)
• Satori Coffee House on Old Shell Road near University   

Forest Hill

• In 1886, the Bienville Water Supply Company constructed a pumping plant on Clear Creek off Moffat Road and a reservoir, still in use, on Moffat Road on Forest Hill, north of Spring Hill.

West Mobile

• West Mobile is generally referred to as the suburban area west of Interstate 65. It is home to the Springdale Shopping Center, Colonial Bel-Air Mall, and other numerous shopping plazas as well as the University of South Alabama. Several country clubs dot the neighborhoods. Several affluent residential neighborhoods have also been constructed primarily south of Airport Boulevard in West Mobile. The citizens of Mobile generally agree that West Mobile property values are the third-highest in the area, behind Springhill, and Midtown.
• The University of South Alabama
• Springdale Plaza and Bel Air Mall are shopping centers located at I-65 and Airport Blvd.
  • Wragg Swamp was drained in the 1950s to create the developments at I-10, Airport Blvd., and Dauphin St.
• The Mobile Terrace-Hillsdale area is a pocket of poverty that straddles Cody Road in west Mobile.
  • Hillsdale was developed as a part of an urban renewal project. USA bought about 750 of the 950 homes from the federal government and individual owners in the late 1960s. USA used them primarily for student housing until 2005. But over time the houses deteriorated, and the neighborhood’s private homeowners, along with the university, for several years were frustrated in efforts to revive the community.
  • In 2006, a non-profit development company, DASH for the Gulf Coast, developed a plan to revitalize the Hillsdale neighborhood. Much of the university’s holdings have now been sold to Habitat for Humanity and DASH for the Gulf Coast.
• One of Mobile’s most populated commercial spots is along Schillinger Road, both north and south of Airport Boulevard
  • Schillinger Road is named after Adolph and Myrtle Schellinger (note the spelling), German immigrants that came to the Mobile area in the 1920s.
• Providence Hospital’s current building opened in 1987
• In September 2007, the Mobile Terrace-Hillsdale area voted to be annexed into the city of Mobile, along with the commercial corridors of Schillinger Road and Airport Blvd. See Mobile: Annexation

Wheelerville

• Wheelerville was located near where the University of South Alabama is today, and stretched for several miles along Old Shell Road. Downtown Wheelerville was in the area between University Blvd. and Hillcrest Road on Old Shell Road. In the 19^th century it had a reputation for violence and feuds. It was founded by Simeon Wheeler in 1828, who lived to be eighty years old until he was shot from ambush by Tom Fincher. Fincher was reported to be the son of Gale Wages, a member of the Copeland Gang, who terrorized this section in the early 1850s.  He was tried four times for the murder of Wheeler until the witnesses died until there was none left and state abandoned the effort to convict Fincher. Some time afterwards Tom Fincher was shot from ambush and his slayer was never discovered. – Source
• Settled by members of the Wheeler, Broadus, Busby, Fincher, Long, McDuffie, Neese, Young and other families, Wheelerville grew to have a name for violence that was known far and wide.

Causeway

• Battleship Park
• WLVV Studios
• Las Brisas on the Bay, the pink, seven-story hotel, has remained closed since being flooded by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. It is owned by John Foley. The 70-foot-high hotel building was erected several years before Spanish Fort annexed the Causeway in 2002.
• Battleship Inn
• In mid-2005, Mobile lawyers Vince Kilborn III and David McDonald told the Spanish Fort City Council they wanted to build a 26-story, archlike high-rise designed by the artist Nall called the Gateway on 9 acres across from Ed’s Seafood Shed restaurant. Residents throughout the city argued that the tower would be too tall, so the two lawyers reduced the size of their proposal considerably. Kilborn and McDonald had said they could work with a 70-foot limit. But after the city council voted for a 40-foot height limit and 20-per-acre density in April 2007, McDonald said he was unsure what would be built on the site.
• The Alabama Department of Transportation, encouraged by a coalition of federal, state and private partners, is completing a thigh-high chain-link fence along the Causeway to protect the endangered Alabama red-bellied turtle, which is Alabama’s state reptile and lives nowhere else on Earth except in Mobile and Baldwin counties. – PR 11/14/07
• Pineda Island is the only residential area on the Causeway
  • The Pineda Club, 10 acres with an Olympic-sized pool adjacent to Pineda Island was built in 1960 but went bankrupt in 1961.  It has stood abandoned since then. Leo Dekle, who built numerous pools throughout south Alabama, built the pool and diving well. It was among the first regulation Olympic-size pools in the Mobile area, recalls the elder Dekle. Mark Meshejian, general manager of Fathom Industries, a dredging and marine contracting company, owns the property. He acquired it in the early 1990s, from D.V. Williams, who had owned it for 15 years prior to that  and had acquired it from an insurance company that had taken it over. The thought of a resort on the property, especially one bringing lots of development into the area, does not appeal to him. – PR 8/31/08
• The Keeton Correctional Center is a federal halfway house located on the Causeway. 
  • The Shoulder rehabilitation center was also located on the Causeway until Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when it moved to Daphne. It was founded in 1988 based on the vision of a Fairhope physician, Paul Fellers.

Causeway Restaurants & Lounges

• Blue Gill
• Felix’s Fish Camp: owned by Cooper Restaurants 
• Ed’s Seafood Shed
• Original Oyster House
• Delta Fish House: owned by Clifton Morrissette (formerly Oysterella’s)
• Argiro’s
• R&R Seafood
• Captain’s Table
• Traders’
• Drifters’