Fairhope

by Cathy Donelson

Book Overview

Three centuries of Utopian dreams came true in the 1890s, when a group of idealists founded Fairhope as a cooperative colony on a lush bluff along Alabama's Gulf Coast. The visionary settlers thought their experimental village had a "fair hope" of success. An oasis of idealism and equality, Fairhope not only succeeded but grew into an elegant enclave of individualism and intellect. The bayside town is the world's oldest and largest single-tax colony...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738542032
• ISBN13: 9780738542034
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (SC)
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.7" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The Bay's Best Kept Secret

I purchased this book primarily because I have visited family in Fairhope, AL many, many times in the last 48 years. Fairhope is a marvelous town on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. It's colorful history is as deep and wide as any other place I know. Fannie Flagg intimately knows all this, and plenty more. The illustrations are plentiful and well placed in this volume. The reader can easily get lost in the pages and plates as the imagination takes over. The local folklore, oral histories, economic development, and cultural flavor of Fairhope rivals the most succulent pot of seafood gumbo. Baldwin County's canopy of Live Oaks draped in Spanish moss shades, but doesn't hide, the syncretism underneath. Red dirt roads that lead to and from white sand beaches were once trails for oxen and mules. Names on mailboxes and street signs validate the presence of settlers whose descendants chose never to leave. These pages are as valuable to the rest of the world as they are to the transgenerational residents who are fortunate enough to live there. I find this smallish book a wonderful addition to my library, and highly recommend it for anyone interested in Americana in any form. Leaf through its pages casually, or dig more deeply into its text. Enjoy this book.