Fairhope French Quarter The Fairhope French Quarter known for its shops and galleries.

William Starling

Fairhope, Alabama's Southern Comfort

Memorist Rick Bragg finds forgiving soil along the brown sand stretch of Mobile Bay

  • By Rick Bragg
  • Photographs by Matt Eich
  • Smithsonian magazine, June 2009

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    Rick Bragg

    Fairhope, Alabama's Southern Comfort

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    I grew up in the Alabama foothills, landlocked by red dirt. My ancestors cussed their lives away in that soil, following a one-crop mule. My mother dragged a cotton sack across it, and my kin slaved in mills made of bricks dug and fired from the same clay. My people fought across it with roofing knives and tire irons, and cut roads through it, chain gang shackles rattling around their feet. My grandfather made liquor 30 years in its caves and hollows to feed his babies, and lawmen swore he could fly, since he never left a clear trail in that dirt. It has always reminded me of struggle, somehow, and I will sleep in it, with the rest of my kin. But between now and then, I would like to walk in some sand.

    I went to the Alabama coast, to the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, to find a more forgiving soil, a shiftless kind that tides and waves just push around.

    I found it in a town called Fairhope.

    I never thought much about it, the name, till I saw the brown sand swirling around my feet under the amber-colored water ten years ago. A swarm of black minnows raced away, and when I was younger I might have scooped one up. This is an easy place, I remember thinking, a place where you can rearrange the earth with a single toe and the water will make it smooth again.

    I did not want sugar white sand, because the developers and tourists have covered up a good part of the Alabama coast, pounded the dunes flat and blocked out the Gulf of Mexico and a large number of stars with high-rise condominiums. You see them all along the coast, jammed into once perfect sand, a thumb in the eye of God. What I wanted was bay sand, river sand, colored by meandering miles of dark water, a place tourists are leery to wade. I wanted a place I could rent, steal or stow away on a boat.

    A town of about 17,000, Fairhope sits on bluffs that overlook the bay. It's not some pounded-out tortilla of a coastal town—all tacky T-shirt shops, spring break nitwits and $25 fried seafood platters—but a town with buildings that do not need a red light to warn low-flying aircraft and where a nice woman sells ripe cantaloupe from the tailgate of a pickup. This is a place where you can turn left without three light changes, prayer or smoking tires, where pelicans are as plentiful as pigeons and where you can buy, in one square mile, a gravy and biscuit, a barbecue sandwich, fresh-picked crab­meat, melt-in-your-mouth beignets, a Zebco fishing reel, a sheet of hurricane-proof plywood and a good shower head.

    "Now, you have to look pretty carefully for a place on the coast to get the sand under your toes without somebody running over you with a Range Rover," said Skip Jones, who lives on the same bayfront lot, just south of Fairhope, his grandparents built on in 1939. "We may be gettin' to that point here, but not yet."

    It would be a lie to say I feel at home here. It is too quaint, too precious for that, but it is a place to breathe. I have a rambling cypress house five minutes from the bay and a half-hour from the blue-green Gulf—even a big cow pasture near my house is closer to the waterfront than I am—but every day I walk by the water, and breathe.

    I grew up in the Alabama foothills, landlocked by red dirt. My ancestors cussed their lives away in that soil, following a one-crop mule. My mother dragged a cotton sack across it, and my kin slaved in mills made of bricks dug and fired from the same clay. My people fought across it with roofing knives and tire irons, and cut roads through it, chain gang shackles rattling around their feet. My grandfather made liquor 30 years in its caves and hollows to feed his babies, and lawmen swore he could fly, since he never left a clear trail in that dirt. It has always reminded me of struggle, somehow, and I will sleep in it, with the rest of my kin. But between now and then, I would like to walk in some sand.

    I went to the Alabama coast, to the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, to find a more forgiving soil, a shiftless kind that tides and waves just push around.

    I found it in a town called Fairhope.

    I never thought much about it, the name, till I saw the brown sand swirling around my feet under the amber-colored water ten years ago. A swarm of black minnows raced away, and when I was younger I might have scooped one up. This is an easy place, I remember thinking, a place where you can rearrange the earth with a single toe and the water will make it smooth again.

    I did not want sugar white sand, because the developers and tourists have covered up a good part of the Alabama coast, pounded the dunes flat and blocked out the Gulf of Mexico and a large number of stars with high-rise condominiums. You see them all along the coast, jammed into once perfect sand, a thumb in the eye of God. What I wanted was bay sand, river sand, colored by meandering miles of dark water, a place tourists are leery to wade. I wanted a place I could rent, steal or stow away on a boat.

    A town of about 17,000, Fairhope sits on bluffs that overlook the bay. It's not some pounded-out tortilla of a coastal town—all tacky T-shirt shops, spring break nitwits and $25 fried seafood platters—but a town with buildings that do not need a red light to warn low-flying aircraft and where a nice woman sells ripe cantaloupe from the tailgate of a pickup. This is a place where you can turn left without three light changes, prayer or smoking tires, where pelicans are as plentiful as pigeons and where you can buy, in one square mile, a gravy and biscuit, a barbecue sandwich, fresh-picked crab­meat, melt-in-your-mouth beignets, a Zebco fishing reel, a sheet of hurricane-proof plywood and a good shower head.

    "Now, you have to look pretty carefully for a place on the coast to get the sand under your toes without somebody running over you with a Range Rover," said Skip Jones, who lives on the same bayfront lot, just south of Fairhope, his grandparents built on in 1939. "We may be gettin' to that point here, but not yet."

    It would be a lie to say I feel at home here. It is too quaint, too precious for that, but it is a place to breathe. I have a rambling cypress house five minutes from the bay and a half-hour from the blue-green Gulf—even a big cow pasture near my house is closer to the waterfront than I am—but every day I walk by the water, and breathe.

    It is, as most towns are, a little full of itself. Some people call it an artist's colony, and that is true, since you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a serious-faced novelist. And there is money here, dusty money and Gucci money. There are shops where ladies in stiletto heels pay Bal Harbour prices for outfits that will be out of style before low tide, but these establishments can be fun, too. I like to stand outside the windows with paint on my sweat pants, tartar sauce on my T-shirt and see the shopgirls fret.

    It had to change, of course, from the sleepy town it used to be, where every man, it seemed, knew the tides, when the air smelled from big, wet burlap bags of oysters and the only rich folks were those who came over on a ferry from Mobile to watch the sun set. But everybody is an interloper here, in a way. Sonny Brewer, a writer, came here in 1979 from Lamar County, in west central Alabama, and never really left. It was the late-afternoon sunlight, setting fire to the bay. "I was 30 years old," said Brewer. "I remember thinking, ‘God, this is beautiful. How did I not know this was here?' And here I stay."

    It is the water, too. The sand is just a path to it.

    Here are the black currents of Fish River, highways of fresh and salt water, big bass gliding above in the fresher water, long trout lurking below in the heavier, saltier depths. The Fish River empties into Weeks Bay, which, through a cut called Big Mouth, empties into Mobile Bay. Here, I caught a trout as long as my arm, and we cooked it in a skillet smoking with black pepper and ate it with roasted potatoes and coleslaw made with purple cabbage, carrots and a heaping double tablespoon of mayonnaise.

    Here is the Magnolia River, one of the last places in America where the mail is delivered by a man in a boat, where in one bend in the river there is a deep, cold place once believed to have no bottom at all. You can see blue crabs the size of salad plates when the tides are right, and shrimp as big as a harmonica. Along the banks are houses on stilts or set far back, because the rivers flood higher than a man is tall, but the trees still crowd the banks, and it looks like something from The African Queen—or the Amazon.

    Then, of course, there is the bay. You can see the skyscrapers of Mobile on a clear day, and at night you see a glow. I pointed to a yellow luminescence one night and proclaimed it to be Mobile, but a friend told me it was just the glow of a chemical plant. So now I tell people Mobile is "over yonder" somewhere.

    You can see it best from the city pier, a quarter-mile long, its rails scarred from bait-cutting knives and stained with fish blood, its concrete floor speckled with scales. This is where Fairhope comes together, to walk, hold hands. It is here I realized I could never be a real man of the sea, as I watched a fat man expertly throw a cast net off the pier, at bait fish. The net fanned out in a perfect oval, carried by lead weights around its mouth, and when he pulled it in it was shining silver with minnows. I tried it once and it was like throwing a wadded-up hamburger sack at the sea.

    So I buy my bait and feel fine. But mostly what I do here is look. I kick off my flip-flops and feel the sand, or just watch the sun sink like a ball of fire into the bay itself. I root for the pelicans, marvel at how they locate a fish on a low pass, make an easy half-circle climb into the air, then plummet into the bay.

    I wonder sometimes if I love this so because I was born so far from the sea, in that red dirt, but people who have been here a lifetime say no, it is not something you get tired of. They tell you why, in stories that always seem to begin with "I remember..."

    "I remember when I was about 10 years old, maybe 8, my mother and sisters and I went through Bon Secour and some guy in a little boat had caught a sawfish," said Skip Jones. "And I thought this thing can't be real—like I felt when they walked on the moon."

    A lifetime later he is still looking in the water. "Last year I went out on the walk one morning at about 6 o'clock, and I looked down and there were a dozen rays, and I looked harder and they were all over the place, hundreds of them. Well, we have a lot of small rays, but these had a different, broader head. And I went inside and looked 'em up and saw that they were cownose rays that congregate around estuaries. I called my friend Jimbo Meador and told him what I saw, and he said, ‘Yeah, I saw them this morning.' They came in a cloud and then they were just gone. I don't know where. I guess to Jimbo's house."

    I would like to tell people stories of the bay, the rivers, the sea, tell them what I remember. But the best I can do is a story about cows. I was driving with my family to the bay, where a bookseller and friend named Martin Lanaux had invited us to watch the Fourth of July fireworks from his neighborhood pier. As we passed the cow pasture, the dark sky exploded with color, and every cow, every one, it seemed, stood looking up at it. It was one of the nicer moments in my life, and I didn't even get my feet wet.

    Rick Bragg is the author of The Prince of Frogtown, now in paperback, All Over but the Shoutin' and Ava's Man.


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    Comments

    Mr. Bragg captured Fairhope to a "T". You'll meet all kinds of folks there, from the very rich to the not so rich. One of the few towns with a public park along Mobile Bay.

    Posted by Don Morrison on May 21,2009 | 09:48 PM

    Thank you so much for the feature on our lovely town!! We also have a write-up in National Geographic's My Favorite Place on Earth book. The article is by author Fannie Flagg, who wrote Fried Green Tomatoes. People do tend to have a love affair with Fairhope, especially those who relocate here.

    Posted by Kathie Barton on May 22,2009 | 10:39 AM

    This is a wonderful piece. Thanks, Rick, for caring about the written word and its ability to invoke the lived-in world. Christian D'Andrea Senior Idea Engineer The History Factory

    Posted by Christian D'Andrea on May 22,2009 | 11:54 AM

    I had to laugh when I read the line: "I like to stand outside the windows with paint on my sweat pants, tartar sauce on my T- shirt and watch the shopgirls sweat." That's the way I saw him once at the mall in Foley, minus the tartar sauce and paint. He is who he is and aren't we glad! He is the winner of many awards, most recently the Harper Lee Award given to an outstanding Alabama author at the Alabama Writers Symposium in Miss Lee's hometown, Monroeville, Ala. No sweat pants at that occasion--he cleans up good! Thanks for a great article about our part of the world! Can't wait to read what's coming next.

    Posted by Alice Owens on May 22,2009 | 07:41 PM

    Rick, You caught it exactly! Your delicious words weave images floating through my head of why walking the pier at night thrills me, seeing the catch pulled up in the nets, watching all the generations meet and mingle in the midst of fishing of all kinds. I see the friendly tomato lady, and the restauranteurs sending signals to her to ready a bag of tomatoes for a "walk across the street pick up." (which these of course are hand picked by her to be carefully sliced and added to the day's special) The beach front, the cows in the meadow, the buzzing little downtown, the flowers that are our signature, and the amazing people here, make it a place that us artists feel we have landed right in the middle of a jubilee! You need to visit to know what that is, but trust me, there are times you need to pinch yourself, as it is truly a Painter's Paradise! It's great to hear another admirer!

    Posted by Nancy McClurken Raia on May 22,2009 | 08:50 PM

    Mr. Bragg describes a bit of utopia that "used to be". Of course, people must make comparison to where thay have been and not to what this Baldwin County , Alabama used to be. The narrow, but beautifully maintained streets, ARE full of all manner of Range Rovers, Escalades and the like along with the ever soaring real estate prices. The quaintness of Fairhope has been sold out to the highest bidder, sand or no sand, Bay or no Bay. The once available Bay front is now fenced, piered and bulkheaded to prevent most from enjoying it except those who own that high dollar real estate. Yes, the City has a nice park. Yes, Barbara sells produce next to the hardware store that has everything except shelf neatness. And, yes, there are many places to eat..but there is almost no place to park anymore. Fairhope proper, old downtown, is small, but 'sprawl' now claims to be Fairhope for advertising efficiency. Also, on weekends, downtown is packed with tourists trying to find the quaintness that was once Fairhope. It's aruse now, a shadow of its previous existence. I live here and rue the ever increasing development. The pasture Mr. Bragg mentions is soon to be full of overpriced giagantic homes. Say good-bye to another once beautifully free place to live.

    Posted by Jon on May 23,2009 | 08:41 AM

    Fairhope is nothing if not complicated, as described in the two books I've written about the town. Now inhabited by dislocated Mobilians and relocated retirees, it was founded as a utopian community to demonstrate the viability of Henry George's concept of cooperative individualism as defined by Ernest B. Gaston of Des Moines in the late 1800s. Newcomers see only the surface, which is elegant and beautiful, but Fairhope harbors a rich past of reformism and vision for an ideal world.

    Posted by Mary Lois on May 23,2009 | 11:45 AM

    I grew up in Fairhope when it wasn't precious. Then it was filled with an odd combination of farm folks and eccentrics that somehow got along with one another. I went away for 30 years, then moved back. In the meantime, it got precious and lost much of its rough-hewn charm. Still, Mr. Bragg has captured the essence of it in a few words. His wistful acknowledgment of the downside of precious is spot on.

    Posted by John Gwin on May 25,2009 | 01:57 PM

    Persnonal note to Rick, Memorial Day evening,
    You should have been down at the Fairhope beach at sunset tonight, watching a couple of 6-8 year olds throwing their nets like pros - perfect circles ! And catching some good size fish.
    Come on down and learn how!!
    AS a P.S. Thank you Fairhope Single Tax pioneers for giving us this wonderful public beach/park.
    Good wishes,
    Maud V.E.

    Posted by maud van eysbergen on May 25,2009 | 10:04 PM

    Great article on our lovely historic Fairhope, AL.

    Posted by Sandra Harper on May 25,2009 | 12:01 AM

    Mr. Bragg's article totally ignores the unique structure of Fairhope's founders - the Single Tax system - which still controls much of the land holdings in central Fairhope and surrounds. It also ignores the demographics that define the town historically - one of the most segregated in the deep south. Controlling who can lease the corporation properties has effectively limited minority occupation. As of the 2000 census, the racial makeup of the city was 90.22% White, 7.79% Black, 0.20% Native American, 0.62% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.21% from other races, and 0.93% from two or more races. 1.04% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

    Posted by Jax Artisan on May 26,2009 | 08:51 AM

    What a joy to read this excellent, funny and endearing look at Fairhope. Mr. Bragg is one of the best writers anywhere, and I appreciate his tender-hearted tribute to my town.

    Posted by Sharon Moore on May 26,2009 | 10:03 AM

    All that Rick says is true, but I fear Northeasterners will like it too much and want to come down here. As a transplanted New Jerseyite, I'd like to shut the door behind me. I always tell all my friends up north that it is very hot and humid down here, and they wouldn't like it. I prefer that they go to Naples or Vero Beach. I'm glad Rick didn't go any farther than he did, and mention how we stand in our shirt sleeves during February Mardi Gras when the town is lit up and up to 50,000 visitors line the streets to enjoy the parades.

    Posted by Walter Kirkland on May 26,2009 | 10:58 AM

    Ha ha-- "Precious" -- only a Southerner would understand!

    Posted by Mary Lu Duffy on May 26,2009 | 12:26 PM

    Gall darn it! I love Rick Bragg. And I love Fairhope too!

    Posted by Mike Whaley on May 27,2009 | 03:34 PM

    Sir, I was born in Fairhope in Thomas Hospital thousands of square feet less than it is now, I grew up on weeks bay and have since left there for my turn to serve in the Armed Forces. I read your article and it makes me feel like i am home at the "Big Mouth" or walking around the duck pond! you have done an excellent job of capturing the highlights of Fairhope and making it real for the time through your words! I cannot say thank you enough! There are always things that will be overlooked but for those of us with the stories that start with "I remeber" they will never be forgotten! Job well done!

    Posted by Mike Nielsen on May 28,2009 | 10:13 AM

    I grew up in Fairhope. I appreciate Bragg's accurate perspective on the town, but after reading it, I don't know if I want to wistfully cry or vomit. As Jon says above, much of the town--like the beach and the "French Quarter"--is imported, overblown, and phony. At least they still allow fish blood on the pier. But seeing that will require saving up for a hotel, since I'll likely never have the means to live in my hometown. As Jax points out, most of the racial diversity is gone, too, which is why Fairhope failed in its bid to be an All American Town. Fairhopers have been talking about "shutting the door behind them" for nearly 15 years. The solution seems to have been simply to make it impossible for certain socioeconomic classes to live there. But perhaps that's not the point...it certainly wasn't for those who have helped transform Fairhope into a Disneyesque version of it's former genuine uniqueness.

    Posted by Ashley Dumas on May 28,2009 | 10:41 AM

    I agree with the commentator who characterized Rick's story as having the power to "invoke the lived-in world". I hope to use the piece in my English classes for adults.

    Posted by Lynn Austin on May 28,2009 | 11:53 AM

    Rick, great article. Like John Gwin, I grew up in Fairhope "when it wasn't precious". What is was, was FUNKY, and we didn't even realize how special it truly was. We were so fortunate to have been around so many interesting (eccentric?) people, not knowing they were "different". A little "odd" maybe, but so cool! Mary Lois comments correctly that so many newcomers appreciate only the surface of Fairhope and have little appreciation for the vision and daring attitude of the original pioneers. Some seem to want to make it more like the town they left, for whatever reason.

    Posted by Barry Gaston on May 28,2009 | 03:45 PM

    Rick Bragg has captured the charm of Fairhope beautifully. However, there is a depth of heart and spirit that I don't believe can be understood by anyone who did not experience Fairhope before it was "precious".

    In 1955, my parents were transferred from Sacramento, CA to Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile. We rented a home in Fairhope. I was 11. It was a move that forever changed my life in very profound ways.

    Growing up we spent long summer days swimming off the Big Pier when it was still made of wood, water skiing at Fish River, catching crabs off the pier with 'crabbing bones' from Piggly Wiggly attached to a string, roller skating in the rink set up on the beach by the pier, going to the movies for a quarter, and drinking cherry cokes at the fountain in the Fairhope Pharmacy. On Friday afternoons before football games, we would parade through town behind the marching band.

    I have fond memories of the knowing virtually everyone in town from the pharmacists to the postman. My youngest sister was born, not at Thomas Hospital, but at the Jordan Clinic, located behind Dr. Jordan's office in town. Years later, he would walk me down the aisle when I married. He was not only our doctor, but also our friend.

    Nearly 50 years after graduating from Fairhope High, I am blessed with the friendship of 11 women who shared those childhood experiences with me. We get together every year to relive our memories over and over again, never tiring of retelling the stories of our childhoods in Fairhope. We lost two members of our group in 2008 and remembered them, in part, by writing their names in the sand on the beach where we spent many hours swimming as youngsters, and watching the tide gently wash their names out into the Bay as the sun set in that magical way it has of doing only in Fairhope.

    Posted by Susan (Boyer) Hulett on May 28,2009 | 12:21 AM

    What a wonderful spot on this earth to live, work and play. Rick, you caught the true emotion of Fairhope and portrayed it expertly. Thank you.

    Posted by Jonda Lyndall on May 29,2009 | 10:38 AM

    I too, came up in Fairhope, I was born and raised here, in fact I was born at Battles Wharf and I came up with John Gwin also, but in a different environment. I grew up on Greeno Road, in the Barnwell Community, I was born the daughter of a Farmer, my Daddy and his five brothers, all farmed with my Grandpa.Our Family had many pinics at the Big Mouth when I was coming up, my Daddy would throw his castnet and catch so many mullet and they would clean them and fry them right there. What a wonderful childhood I had, and to this day I still live in Barnwell. My husband and I are both U.S. Postal Employees, we are both Mail Carriers in Fairhope and we love it. I think you did an excellent job Mr. Bragg, and I Thank You.
    P.S. I have been to many Jubilee's my Daddy always had the car packed and rigged to rush to a Jubilee and when he hollered we all jumped in the car and went, back then, no one was ever left at home alone, the whole family went. Yes, I am proud to have lived in Fairhope and also in my generation!!!
    Marianne Bishop Stewart

    Posted by Marianne Bishop Stewart on May 29,2009 | 06:55 PM

    I enjoyed Rick Bragg's "My Kind of Town" (June 2009)tremendously!
    His words flow like honey over a Johnny cake.
    I've read all his books with great enjoyment so please give us more of his articles.

    Posted by Betty Jane Weaver on May 30,2009 | 03:27 AM

    As an Alabama writer, I am in awe of Rick Bragg -- his command of the written word and his humanity. As much as I love his narrative non-fiction, I pray that I live long enough to read his debut novel. I know it will be one the most meaningful reads of my life. His article on Fairhope only whets my appetite for more.

    Hurry up on that novel already, Mr. Bragg!

    Bless your heart.

    Posted by Bonnie Bartel Latino on May 30,2009 | 03:29 PM

    What wonderful memories gleemed from this article. Thank You.

    Posted by Joe Morrison on June 1,2009 | 09:05 AM

    Chick town. Hard for a guy to buy a pair of pants or a shirt. Great hardware store - junk everywhere - I loved it! Be that as it may, we went back 3 times because we enjoyed Fairhope so much. It a true Alabama jewel. Ate in the French Quater which is in the middle of a block and defies GPS units to find it. Pannini Pete's is special in the French Quater. Chatted with Pete who is large and very friendly. Pete's surly father, "Butter," (who everyone loves to death) sits above the seating area and keeps things in line. Fairhope with its art, antiques and upscale everything else is definately a cut above and well worth the trip.

    Posted by Mark Weber on June 1,2009 | 08:58 PM

    Just coming home from a shrimp boil, held to raise money for one of Fairhope's long time local barbers....it was so beautiful being on the bay surrounded by friends and neighbors that had come out to support one of their own. On the ride home I watched the sky turn pink to amber and commented on how lucky we are to have this at our doorstep...how lucky we really are....

    Posted by Cecilia Lewis on June 1,2009 | 10:36 PM

    What a tribute to idealism and planning Fairhope has again become. I hope its founding principles will not be lost (again) among the inevitable debris of perceived necessity, especially that which comes from difficult economic times. From the Single Tax theory to Organic Education my family lived within most of Fairhope's utopian past and there is some slight satisfaction for me in seeing real estate development re-evolving to traditional neighborhood design and education re-discovering simple physical hands on play and intellectual development. It seems a shame the quants at Harvard and other hedge funds ignored history and Georgist theory all at the same time. Perhaps Rick can attend to that discussion later. Glad to se that there are still a few of us Battle's natives left and to Susan, how are Karen and Chris?

    Posted by Philip Dyson on June 1,2009 | 10:43 PM

    I migrated to Fairhope from west Mobile over seven years ago, and wonder now why I waited so long to get here. My mother moved here in the early eighties and my children and I, along with other family members, spent holidays here. Great memories of walking to the pier to watch the sun set after overindulging homemade gumbo, Easter egg hunts with endless hidden eggs, and beautiful tree lit Fairhope at Christmastime.

    What a wonderful place to live! Thanks, Rick, for your beautifully written article!

    Posted by Jan McElroy on June 2,2009 | 09:48 AM

    That was a very nice article by Mr. Bragg. I was born in Fairhope in 1962 and have never left with the only exception being the Army. I grew up on N. Summit St and would be at the bay everyday, either swimming, fishing or walking the beach to the yacht club. Oh the memories, thanks again Mr. Bragg and hang around some more.

    Posted by Clark "Ceb" Bonnell on June 2,2009 | 11:14 AM

    I WAS HAPPY TO DISCOVER RICK ON THE COMPUTER AN TO READ THE QUOTES ABOUT HIM. MY WIFE (NOW DECEASED)enjoyed his books as i did also. was happy for him when he won the granddaddy of all writers prizes'an he was such a mans man if you know what i mean.he tells it like it is as my wife lived most of what he talked about. thanks again for the plain truth rick ----
    j.e.collins

    Posted by jack collins on June 2,2009 | 01:33 PM

    I visited Fairhope in 2007 when I worked on Katrina rebuilding in Bayou La Batre. I live in Lakeland, Florida, and I was in Alabama for two weeks and went over to Fairhope both weekends to worship. It was the nearest town with a Quaker Meeting. Driving and walking around, I got a sense of the place, and Rick's article brought it all back. Thank you.

    Posted by Rick Souza on June 5,2009 | 09:29 AM

    Rick, you are so right about Fairhope. It is such a beautiful town and you know how to put into writing the way most of us who live there feel about it. You do have a way with words and your many writings prove it!!!!!

    Posted by Jennie Avant on June 15,2009 | 08:34 AM

    Have had the pleasure of visiting Fairhope. I liked just about everything about it. You seemed to have gotten usual amount of comments from the malcontents who are negative thinkers.

    Posted by Harry Dhans on June 20,2009 | 10:56 AM

    rick bragg has done it again: written a beautiful, stirring piece that captures both the ambiance and significance of a unique spot of americana. thank you, smithsonian and mr. bragg, for spotlighting such a rare treasure!

    Posted by cassandra king on June 21,2009 | 09:06 PM

    I have been trying to move to this quaint town since 1994...Finally I am here. This article is absolutely exact! I cannot wait to participate in the wonders of Fairhope.

    Marilyn Trice Fillingim

    Posted by Marilyn Trice Fillingim on June 26,2009 | 04:05 PM

    Although I enjoyed reading Rick Bragg's article and, although I have never been to Fairhope, thought he captured the atmosphere of the city. However. I was surprised that he did not mention the unique historical beginnings of the city, especially in a publication like the Smithsonian. Fairhope was founded in 1894 by a group of idealistic followers of Henry George as a single-tax colony (a tax based upon land value). Part of the city is still functioning as a single tax entity to this day.

    Posted by Gilbert Herman on June 27,2009 | 10:05 AM

    My Wife and I have visited Fairhope for the last 20 years. We love walking into town and browde thru all the little shops and stopping to have lunch. It's really a nice peaceful and quiet town.

    Posted by Bernard & Colette Marek on June 27,2009 | 12:03 PM

    I was born in bham,al. my parents brought our family each summer to fairhope for vacations. when i got out of the service in l947, my folks had moved to fairhope and it was my home for 5 years. in those 5 years, i experienced the magic of this little town. i lived on n. summit st. and was close to the bay, so stayed on the beach most all of the time. my street was yet unpaved in those days. the soda garden was the place to hang out after having met your friends down at the big pier for swimming and after the soda garden, you went to the post office to pick up your mail. one of my favorite places was the open air theatre on the beach. there were so many things going on in fairhope in those days--jubilees, great fishing off the big pier, crabbing, visiting the pinequat shoppe, etc. i wish i could have written a book about it, but that was not my forte--but bob bell, my brother, wrote THE BUTTERFLY TREE after having lived there.

    Posted by bill bell on July 1,2009 | 08:25 PM

    I currently live in the suburbs of Chicago, but lived in Mobile for 7 years in the 90's. I still have a hand-made coffee mug that I bought at the arts and crafts fair in Fairhope in 1994. I love that stupid mug. It reminds me of slow summer days in Fairhope and along the Eastern shore. Thanks for the article.

    Posted by David on July 10,2009 | 02:52 PM

    I have lived in Fairhope my whole life. The accuracy with which you have described Fairhope is amazing. Just by reading this I think you have seen in my home what so many do, and Fairhope truely is a wonderful place to live. I leave this year for Navy bootcamp and These last few months here make me think about the town in a kind of retrospect like you have and I know I will end up back on these bluffs and beaches but with a family. I could never allow my future children to miss out on the opportunities I had growing up here. First dates downtown, fishing the bay, rope swings into the creek, sports...life was paused here in the 1950's or somthing and I think nobody ever came around to push play again. But I dont think any of us want to.

    Posted by Kyle Fredrickson on July 14,2009 | 01:15 PM

    I currently live in Flagstaff, AZ, but have my retirement sites set on Fairhope. It has been my dream for over 40 years when I wandered there on the way to Gulf Shores. It was a beautiful, quaint, and small place then, and when I visited it again last Spring, it was still appealing. It remains one of the prettiest, tidiest, places I've seen.

    Mr. Bragg, thanks for your three pages of descriptions. I had not talked to anyone who could describe your experiences, and you've made me eager to move there SOON.

    Posted by Vaalerie McCluskey on October 26,2009 | 06:26 PM

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