Grand Bay, AL news and local guide

The early 1900s brought a boom. The Grand Bay Land Company sold ten-acre lots to buyers in Chicago and other northern cities, promoting pecan and satsuma orchards as enough to support a family. The town soon had a weekly newspaper, telegraph service, a hotel, a drugstore, general stores and a bank. Hurricanes in 1906 and 1910 and a severe freeze then sent many of the newcomers back north. In 1919 Peter Alba donated land for the Grand Bay Elementary School for Colored, built with help from Black residents, the county school board and the Julius Rosenwald Fund; it served Black children from primer through seventh grade until it closed in 1949. Grand Bay's Watermelon Festival, held each Fourth of July, began in the early 20th century, stopped during World War II and was revived in 1973. The old bank building and its surroundings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Grand Bay Historic District, and a community center built in 2005 stands on the site of the old Rosenwald school. Sources Wikipedia: Grand Bay, Alabama (citing Andrews, History of the Campaign of Mobile, National Magazine and Ballard, Remember Our Yesterdays) The Historical Marker Database: Grand Bay Elementary School for Colored (Citizens for a Better Grand Bay)