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