November 2, 1999
Buying and Selling Dauphin Island
by Bill Patterson
[In these articles The Harbinger examines the history and
consequences of the Mobile Chamber of Commerce's development of Dauphin Island.
The previous article looked at the building of the first bridge to the island.]
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The Chamber of Commerce purchased Dauphin Island in 1954, and within a few
years, the business group raised over $6 million selling land it bought for
$950,000. Growing public demand for recreation was crucial to the Chamber's
success. When the first bridge to Dauphin Island opened in 1955, visits to
an ocean beach became an easy day trip for Mobilians. Beaches on the Gulf
in Florida and Mississippi had developed years before because good roads,
such as US Highway 90, ran near the coast. Dauphin Island had remained isolated,
and except for the yearly Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo, tourism on Mobile
County's Gulf beaches had contributed little to Mobile's economy.
In 1974 the Chamber of Commerce published a book by a Chamber
vice president, S. Blake McNeely. His account, The Development of Dauphin
Island, Alabama: Gem of the Ocean, described the venture: "Our project was
non-profit to the Chamber of Commerce, our sole purpose being to see this
beautiful island enjoyed by as many of our people as possible." McNeely wrote
that the idea for the project came at an informal session at the Chamber in
the early 1950s. According to this account, a group of Chamber officers met
after county voters had rejected a one-cent-a-gallon gas tax to fund a Dauphin
Island bridge. The Chamber had led the campaign to build a bridge with a gas
tax. McNeely wrote in The Development of Dauphin Island, Alabama: "One of
that small group said, 'We ought to buy the island and sell off enough to
pay for it and build our bridge.'" That morning, McNeely indicated, the Chamber
called Birmingham and offered the Gulf Properties Corporation $1 million for
the island.
Who Owned Dauphin Island?
Dauphin Island is fourteen miles long, with an eastern portion heavily wooded,
wider and more elevated than the wind- and water-swept western portion. Over
the centuries, Gulf waters have washed away and then rebuilt portions of the
island. The east end is the most stable. During the nineteenth century the
Gulf swept away miles of the present island's western portion . The federal
government constructed Fort Gaines at the east end of the island in the early
1800s. By the end of that century, the federal government owned nearly 1,000
acres around the fort, a tract that extended to the present-day Cadillac Square
Park. Land records in Mobile County Probate Court examined by The Harbinger
show that in 1911, Congress sold 700 acres of this land to the Dauphin Island
Railway and Harbor Company on the condition that within four years the company
would build a railroad bridge from the mainland, and a dock on the Gulf to
off-load cargo. During the next several years, the syndicate involved in the
railway project bought and consolidated ownership of most of Dauphin Island.
It was during these years that the name of Forney Johnston first appears in
probate court records. Johnston was the son of former Alabama Governor and
U.S. Senator, Joseph F. Johnston. The elder Johnston served in the Congress
from 1907 until his death in 1913.
Some years later, Frank Boykin, Mobile's Congressman from
1935 until 1962, joined Forney Johnston and other business people to form
Gulf Properties Corporation. Boykin had made a fortune through land speculation
before he entered Congress. Since the early 1900s he had bought and sold land
and timber throughout south Alabama. According to a probate court document
the Gulf Properties Corporation was organized in 1930 to acquire and hold
land on Dauphin Island until a bridge and other developments would add "to
the value and use or marketability of the land thereon." By 1953 Gulf Properties
held most of Dauphin Island.
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 in This Man's World: Vignettes from the Life of Frank W. Boykin.
In this account, the prosperous Boykin met a man named Breck Musgrove, of
Jasper, Alabama, on a train trip from New York in 1929. Musgrove approached
Boykin for a $50,000 loan, offering to "put up Dauphin Island as collateral."
Boykin and several others made the loan. Eighteen months later, after Musgrove
failed to pay it back, Boykin, Forney Johnston, T. J. Rester, and Judge Matt
Boykin, Frank Boykin's brother, took title to "over ninety percent of Dauphin
Island." The partners then formed the Gulf Properties Corporation.
The Chamber of Speculation
Within two years of its purchase of the Gulf Properties' land in 1954, the
Chamber of Commerce had subdivided and sold over 2,000 lots, raising more
than $6 million. It had paid $950,000 in cash for the land. In their deal
with the Chamber, Boykin, Forney and their partners, now organized as West
Dauphin Corporation, held onto the westmost eight miles of the island. 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. A Chamber spokesman explained how income
from the speculative venture was tax-exempt: "The trust fund is being set
up so that all money derived from the sale of lots will be spent on the island
on behalf of the public and the land owners. On this basis, the U.S. Bureau
of Internal Revenue has ruled that the Chamber of Commerce, as a nonprofit
corporation, will not be liable for income tax."
The trust agreement stated the Chamber's purpose was "to
develop said island as a recreational center and residential and resort area
for the benefit of the inhabitants of Mobile County, the State of Alabama
and the Mobile Gulf Coast trade area." 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 Fort Gaines
itself. Also on the east end, the Chamber built a camp ground located near
another public beach. The Chamber also set aside several other parcels of
land for the pubic. 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.
Recent interviews with long-time island residents and newspaper
accounts from the 1950s show few islanders had opposed the construction of
the bridge. But there was no such unanimity about the Chamber's plan to sell
lots and develop the island. The opening of the bridge began what the Birmingham
News described in 1955 as "the multi-million-dollar vacation paradise wonderland
program." The bridge to the island was a financial success, and the state
eliminated the toll in 1963. At the time, the average Alabamian appeared a
major beneficiary of the Chamber's development program. A decade later, however,
the Sand Dunes Casino was closed and in ruins, and the Fort Gaines Club had
burned. Neither facility was replaced, and in 1999, there are 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.
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April 10, 2001
The Harbinger consists of area faculty, staff and students, and members of
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expressed here are the responsibility of The Harbinger. Contributions to The
Harbinger are tax exempt to the full extent of the law and create no liability
for the contributor. Editorial Board: Edmund Tsang, Dan Silver, Tom Brennan,
Konrad Kressley, Phil Tapia Copy Editor: Dana Escobio, Tom Brennan, Michael
Smith Illustrator: D. A. Powell, Dawn Loper-Claire, Stacy Taylor, Mackie Fiala,
L. D. Fletcher Coordinator: Edmund Tsang Typography: L. D. Fletcher Photography:
L. D. Fletcher, Kevin Marston Production: Andrew Wilhelm, Regina Tsang, Pat
& Ernie Pinson Legal Counsel: Dom Soto
