Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Fairhope, AL

Fairhope is a city in Baldwin County on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, founded on November 15, 1894, as a Georgist 'Single Tax' colony, one of the most famous utopian experiments in American history.

The colony was organized in Des Moines, Iowa, by followers of economist Henry George, whose 1879 book Progress and Poverty argued that land value is created by the community; led by Iowa journalist Ernest Berry Gaston, the first colonists — 19 adults and nine children — arrived on the bay bluffs on November 15, 1894.

The founders named their colony Fairhope for the 'fair hope' of success they held for the experiment, and Gaston served as the colony's secretary for 41 of the following 43 years.

The Fairhope Single Tax Corporation still operates today, administering about 1,800 leaseholds covering more than 4,000 acres in and around the city, where many residents lease colony land on long-term renewable leases rather than owning it outright.

Disputes over colony rent charges helped push Fairhope to incorporate as a separate municipality on April 25, 1908, with 569 residents, creating its unusual dual structure of a city government alongside the single-tax corporation.

In 1907, educator Marietta Johnson founded the School of Organic Education in Fairhope, a pioneering progressive school praised in John Dewey's influential 1915 book Schools of Tomorrow; it still operates today as a small private school.

'Fairhope Avenue' was one of the properties on the 1910 board game The Landlord's Game, the Georgist precursor of Monopoly.

Fairhope became a celebrated wintering spot and artists' colony, drawing visitors and residents such as Sherwood Anderson, Clarence Darrow, and Upton Sinclair.

The 2020 census counted 22,477 residents in 9,297 households in Fairhope, up nearly 47 percent from 15,326 in 2010, and the city is a principal city of the Daphne–Fairhope–Foley metropolitan area, which covers all of Baldwin County.

Fairhope sits on a sloping plateau above Mobile Bay along U.S. Route 98, rising from sea level at the shore to about 122 feet near the city center, about 10 miles south of Spanish Fort.