Lillian, AL news and local guide

The crossing here has long mattered. In Spanish times Francisco Suarez ran a ferry near the site of the modern town, and after the United States took control of Mobile during the War of 1812, a stockade fort was built in the area; Spanish forces burned it a few months later. In 1916 the first bridge across Perdido Bay replaced the ferry between Alabama and Florida, operated by the Perdido Bay Bridge and Ferry Company. A second bridge was finished in 1930, when ownership passed to the states of Alabama and Florida, and it remained a toll bridge until 1943. The current bridge was completed in 1980. In 1923 the Baldwin Colonization Company bought the area to promote it as a resort. Lillian once had its own school and a hotel, which had first stood in Elberta before it was taken apart and moved to Lillian. Today Lillian is an unincorporated community on U.S. Highway 98. Sources Wikipedia: Lillian, Alabama (citing Foscue, Place Names in Alabama, Gulf Coast News Today and Jim Forte Postal History)