Fort Morgan | |
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Coordinates: 30°13′43″N88°01′23″W / 30.22861°N 88.02306°W Coordinates: 30°13′43″N88°01′23″W / 30.22861°N 88.02306°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Alabama |
County | Baldwin |
Elevation | 10 ft (3 m) |
Time zone | UTC-6 (Central (CST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
GNIS feature ID | 156368 [1] |
Fort Morgan, also known as Fort Bowyer, is an unincorporated community in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. It is west of Gulf Shores on Mobile Point. Mobile Point extends from Gulf Shores to the west, towards historic Fort Morgan at the tip of the peninsula.
The population in 1880 was 38. [2]
A post office operated under the name Fort Morgan from 1892 to 1924. [3]
Some Fort Morgan residents have sought to incorporate their community, and have pursued litigation against Gulf Shores. In 2016, a bill to incorporate Fort Morgan was not considered by the Alabama legislature. The Fort Morgan Civic Association has stated that incorporation would enable the community to protect itself from waterfront development, after Alabama made a "$1.8 million investment in renovating the state's rundown beach house there". [4]
The community is part of the Daphne – Fairhope – Foley Micropolitan Statistical Area. Unofficially, along with Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, the community is considered to be a part of the Emerald Coast region that the western panhandle of Florida is located on. Additionally, Fort Morgan is located across Mobile Bay from Dauphin Island. [5]
Mobile is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States Census. It is the fourth-most-populous city in Alabama, after Huntsville, Birmingham, and Montgomery.
Mobile Bay is a shallow inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in the United States. Its mouth is formed by the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. The Mobile River and Tensaw River empty into the northern end of the bay, making it an estuary. Several smaller rivers also empty into the bay: Dog River, Deer River, and Fowl River on the western side of the bay, and Fish River on the eastern side. Mobile Bay is the fourth largest estuary in the United States with a discharge of 62,000 cubic feet (1,800 m3) of water per second. Annually, and often several times during the summer months, the fish and crustaceans will swarm the shallow coastline and shore of the bay. This event, appropriately named a jubilee, draws a large crowd because of the abundance of fresh, easily caught seafood.
Baldwin County is a county located in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Alabama, on the Gulf coast. It is one of only two counties in Alabama that border the Gulf of Mexico, along with Mobile County. As of the 2020 census, the population was 231,767. The county seat is Bay Minette. The county is named after senator Abraham Baldwin, though he never lived in what is now Alabama.
Daphne is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States, on the eastern shoreline of Mobile Bay. The city is located along I-10, 11 miles east of Mobile and 170 miles southwest of the state capital of Montgomery. The 2010 United States Census lists the population of the city as 21,570, making Daphne the most populous city in Baldwin County. It is a principal city of the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metropolitan area, which includes all of Baldwin County.
Gulf Shores is a resort city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 9,741.
Orange Beach is a resort city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 8,095.
Spanish Fort is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States, located on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. The 2020 census lists the population of the city as 10,049. It is a suburb of Mobile and is part of the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metropolitan area.
Dauphin Island is an island town in Mobile County, Alabama, United States, on a barrier island of the same name, in the Gulf of Mexico. It incorporated in 1988. The population was 1,778 at the 2020 census, up from 1,238 at the 2010 census. The town is part of the Mobile metropolitan area. The island was renamed for Louis XIV of France's great-grandson and heir, the dauphin, the future Louis XV of France. The name of the island is often mistaken as Dolphin Island; the word dauphin is French for dolphin, but historically, the term was used as the title of the heir apparent to the French monarch.
The Florida Panhandle is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida; it is a salient roughly 200 miles (320 km) long and 50 to 100 miles wide, lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is arbitrarily defined. In terms of population, major communities include Tallahassee, Pensacola, and Panama City.
The Emerald Coast is an unofficial name for the coastal area in the US state of Florida on the Gulf of Mexico that stretches about 100 miles (160 km) through five counties, Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, and Bay, which include Pensacola Beach, Navarre Beach, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, and Panama City Beach. Some south Alabama communities on the coast of Baldwin County, such as Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, and Fort Morgan embrace the term as well.
Navarre is a census-designated place and unincorporated community in Santa Rosa County in the northwest Florida Panhandle. It is a major bedroom community for mostly U.S. military personnel, federal civil servants, local population, retirees and defense contractors. Due to Navarre Beach and the 4 miles (6.4 km) of beach front on the Gulf of Mexico thereof, as well as several miles of beaches within the Navarre Beach Marine Park and the Gulf Islands National Seashore, it has a small, but rapidly growing community of nature enthusiasts and tourists. Navarre has grown from being a small town of around 1,500 in 1970 to a town with a population estimated at 43,540 as of 2020, if including both the Navarre and Navarre Beach Census Designated Places.
Lillian is an unincorporated community in eastern Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. Lillian is located on U.S. Route 98 on the western shore of Perdido Bay, 9.5 miles (15.3 km) east of Elberta. Its eastern edge lies on the Alabama/Florida state line.
The Mobile Metropolitan Area comprises Mobile and Washington counties in the southwest corner of Alabama in the United States. As of the 2020 census the metropolitan area had a population of 430,197. The Mobile metropolitan area is the third-largest metropolitan area in the state of Alabama, after Birmingham and Huntsville.
Magnolia Springs is a town in south Baldwin County, Alabama, United States, in the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metropolitan area. The town voted to incorporate in 2006. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 723.
Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge is a 7,157-acre (29 km2) National Wildlife Refuge located in five separate units in Baldwin and Mobile Counties, United States, directly west of Gulf Shores, Alabama on the Fort Morgan Peninsula. The refuge serves as a resting and feeding area for migratory birds and as a sanctuary for native flora and fauna. The refuge is one of the largest undeveloped parcels of land on the Alabama coast.
Bon Secour is an unincorporated community in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. It lies along the eastern coastline of Bon Secour Bay. Bon Secour is over 35 miles (56 km) due east of the Alabama–Mississippi state line, near Gulf Shores, and over 45 miles (72 km) west of Pensacola, Florida. The name "Bon Secour" derives from the French phrase meaning "safe harbor" due to the secluded location on the inside coast of the Fort Morgan peninsula of southern Alabama.
Interstate 10 (I-10) is a part of the Interstate Highway System that runs from Santa Monica, California, to Jacksonville, Florida. In Alabama, the Interstate Highway runs 66.269 miles (106.650 km) from the Mississippi state line near Grand Bay east to the Florida state line at the Perdido River. I-10 is the primary east–west highway of the Gulf Coast region of Alabama. The highway connects Mobile, the largest city in South Alabama, with Pascagoula, Mississippi, to the west and Pensacola, Florida, to the east. Within the state, the highway connects Mobile and Mobile County with the Baldwin County communities of Daphne and Fairhope. I-10 connects Mobile and Baldwin County by crossing the northern end of Mobile Bay and the southern end of the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta via the George Wallace Tunnel in Mobile and the Jubilee Parkway viaduct system between Mobile and Daphne.
State Route 135 (SR 135) is a 2.138-mile (3.441 km) state highway in southern Baldwin County in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Alabama. The southern terminus of the highway is at an intersection with SR 182 in Gulf Shores. The northern terminus of the route is at an intersection with SR 180, also in Gulf Shores. It serves as a connecting route between those two highways. The entire highway is inside the boundary of Gulf State Park.
State Route 180 is a 28.359-mile-long (45.639 km) state highway that serves as a west-to-east highway in Baldwin County, and travels between the cities of Fort Morgan and Orange Beach. It, along with State Route 182, is one of two state routes in the southern part of the county between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Gulf of Mexico. It goes through Gulf Shores, but the route does not reach the Florida border.
Perdido Beach is a town located on the northern shore of Perdido Bay, between the mouths of Soldier Creek and Palmetto Creek in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. In an April 2009 plebiscite, over 60% of local voters supported incorporation as a town. On June 10, 2009, Baldwin County Probate Judge Adrian Johns issued an order which incorporated the area as a town. The first municipal elections, in which the mayor and town council will be elected, were scheduled for the fall of 2009. As of the 2010 census, the town had a population of 581.