Fairhope, AL

Fairhope is still a thriving and growing community located on the Eastern shores of Mobile Bay.

Visit the Fairhope Museum of History – Click Here to Learn More

The Dean Mosher painting “The Founding of Fairhope,” has many of the elements that brought the successful experiment together.

• The Bay Boat James Carney brought the first batch of settlers to the Eastern Shore on November 15, 1894. They landed at Battles Wharf and called it “Camp Fairhope.”
• The characters portrayed from the left are Lydia Comings, who invented Physical Education in schools all over the USA.
• The gentleman next to her is Frank Brown, who started the Fairhope Clay Products Company here in 1904.
• Next with the white sideburns is Clement Coleman who ran the Colony Mercantile and dug the first town well.
• Looking at the map is James Bellangee who first introduced the single tax idea.
• Below him is Marie Howland, who started the first Library here in 1899.
• Above her is Ernest Gaston, who dreamed up the idea for a new colony and next to him is his wife, Clara and their daughter Lilly Francis.
• Sharing the book with the children is Marietta Johnson who started the Organic School in Fairhope in 1907.
• The ghostly figures floating like clouds are Henry George, Joseph Fels, Clara Atkinson and General Weaver, folks who also had a powerful influence on Fairhope. It was actually Dr. Atkinson who dreamed up the phrase “Fairhope” which at the time wasn’t what she called a “happy thought.”