Photo: Courtesy of Chamber of Commerce, The Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama.

Mobile Bay magazine’s current issue explores the storied history of the Isle Dauphine Club, offering readers a look into one of Dauphin Island’s most influential cultural institutions. While celebrating the club’s establishment and enduring legacy, the feature touches on a pivotal moment in the island’s development: the Mobile Chamber’s instrumental role in developing Dauphin Island and facilitating the construction of the Dauphin Island Bridge.

In 1952, Alabama Governor Gordon Persons authorized the State Highway Department to prepare plans for a Dauphin Island Bridge provided certain conditions were met, including at least four miles of public beaches, construction of public parks and facilities, the sale of available lots to the public at reasonable prices and construction and maintenance of all inland island roads by Mobile County.

Oliver H. Delchamps, president of the Mobile Chamber, and John E. Toomey, chairman of the Chamber’s bridge committee, agreed to the governor’s demands would be met and conceived a development plan, which included purchasing the Island, selling residential lots to the public, and facilitating the construction of the Dauphin Island Bridge.

Specifically, the Mobile Chamber bought Dauphin Island (excluding areas held by the State or existing settlers) from Gulf Properties Corp., a holding company of individuals who owned various large tracts of the Island, for $1 million. ​It then plotted 2,000 residential lots and sold them to the public through licensed realtors. ​ All lots were sold within five days in November 1953.

By the numbers: Proceeds from the lot sales were allocated for development, including $1 million for infrastructure, $500,000 for a public beach (Sand Dunes Casino), and a similar amount for the private Isle Dauphine Club, which offered property owners 10 years of free membership.

Why it matters: This transformative project forever altered the island’s accessibility and character. In the 175th anniversary publication from 2011, the Chamber documented its involvement in this initiative and provided crucial context for understanding how Dauphin Island evolved from a remote barrier island into the accessible destination we know today. The article is reprinted in its entirety below:

What a Difference a Bridge Makes

The Chamber develops Dauphin Island as America’s Great New Playground

For generations, Mobilians had looked longingly across Mississippi Sound at Dauphin Island and its miles of sandy beaches and virgin forest, with hardly a single person calling it home. But gazing across the four-mile stretch of water seemed like the only practical way to enjoy it. The water was too deep for a road, too shallow for a ferryboat and too expansive for a bridge.

As early as 1930 Mobile Area Chamber President Frank Courtney met with Mobile County commissioners to promote a bridge, to no avail. In 1933 the county was more amenable, but only if it didn’t have to contribute funds. Again and again, for a decade and a half, the Chamber’s board minutes reflect the desire for easy access to Mobile County’s island on the Gulf of Mexico.

Then a handful of individuals took the lead and bridged history. In 1945 the Chamber named John E. Toomey to lead the Dauphin Island Bridge Committee. Just a year later, Toomey was meeting with the state highway department. By 1948 he had developed a plan to fund a bridge with a 1-cent gasoline tax and a 25-cent toll. Everybody liked the idea of a bridge; nobody cared for a tax. So the plan was defeated by voters in 1951.

S. Blake McNeely, who wrote The Development of Dauphin Island, Alabama, Gem of the Ocean, published by the Chamber in 1974, described Toomey as “a bulldozer that would just go right in and get a job done when everyone else was holding back or hesitating for one reason or another.” Toomey worked on the project until the day he died in 1960, spending the morning of the last day of his life in a court hearing regarding island squatters.

Meanwhile, new Chamber president O.H. “Ollie” Delchamps and Chamber manager R.D. Hays started brainstorming in a meeting with McNeely, A.A. Weiskopf and Other C. Lockett. Says McNeely, “One of that small group said, ‘We ought to buy the island and sell off enough to pay for it and build our own bridge.”

Enthralled with the idea, even before the meeting broke up, Hays called the group that held title to the island and offered $1 million. Next they approached a group of real estate agents who were Chamber members and broached the idea.

The agents responded that they could raise the $100,000 needed for startup costs. Finally, Chamber representatives met with Gov. Gordon Persons, who promised – in writing – that the state would pay $1 million toward a bridge if Mobile County folks came up with the other $2 million it was estimated to cost.

Agreements in place, the plans went into effect so quickly that basics were almost forgotten – like getting titles to the land they were about to sell.

On Aug. 26, 1953, the Chamber approved plans to buy the island, offering at least 1,500 lots with a 20 percent discount for purchases made before the bridge was built or roads and utilities were in place and another 10 percent discount for cash. No sales would be final until the project had brought in $2.25 million in sales.

Chamber members and their real estate partners in the Dauphin Island Land Sales Corp., including 44 firms, were racing the clock, fearing if a bridge contract wasn’t signed before the end of Persons’ term – just five months later – the deal might fall through. Virtually everyone involved in the project – planners, surveyors, road builders and more – agreed to work gratis until the project paid off. Chamber staffers were offered a percentage of sales commissions in return for working nights and weekends on the project.

The project was advertised far and wide, but no one knew what to expect when sales opened. Their wildest dreams wouldn’t have predicted their success. In three days, they sold l,800 lots (though only 1,500 had been surveyed at that point) – most of them sight unseen. Eighty percent of the buyers paid in cash and, McNeely notes, only four were ever foreclosed on.

Though folks bought their lots without seeing them, the buyers did want to see the property, so Chamber staffer Other Lockett arranged transportation – an oyster boat from Cedar Point dock and a tractor-pulled bus to the heart of the island. From there, the new property owners went on foot to find the markers identifying their lots.

The Dauphin Island Property Owners Association held its first meeting in February of 1954, electing McNeely as its first president.

Dauphin Island’s prominent golf ball-style water tower was the first construction project, while timber was cut to make way for roads. Plans were finalized for electricity, telephone, sewer service and mosquito control. Some joked, according to McNeely, that Admiral Farrugut’s famous line, “Damn the torpedoes!” should have been “Damn the mosquitoes!”

Elements of the project continued into subsequent years. For example, contracts were let in January of 1956 for the Sand Dunes Casino at $355,443 and the Isle Dauphine Club at $353,460. It’s important to note that in the 1950s, “casino” was popularly used in the Italian meaning of a gathering place. There was no gambling. Meanwhile, volunteers worked to clean up Fort Gaines so it was suitable for visitors. Chamber staffer Richard Farrelly cleaned cannons discovered onsite and remounted them according to blueprints of the fort.

The big day came July 2, 1955, when John Toomey and Ollie Delchamps rode in the first car to cross the new bridge. Before the day was over 800 vehicles crossed the bridge, and more than 3,000 crossed on the July 4th holiday.

And when Hays died in 1959, the Chamber passed a resolution saying: “He should be credited as the outstanding single person who did most to conceive and carry out the successful idea of developing Dauphin Island.”

The bridge was a big success, and the toll was dropped in 1963. The bridge fell victim to Hurricane Frederic in 1979, but a new bridge was back in place just three years later.

After taking the lead in developing the island, the Chamber eventually turned over its interests to the Dauphin Island Property Owners Association and the island’s Park and Beach Board.