Orange Beach, the Groves and Perdido Pass
Near Gulf Shores, Alabama
Just east of Gulf Shores lies a town with a name that hints at a vanished way of life, Orange Beach. In the late eighteen hundreds, settlers cleared the pine and turpentine forests and planted groves of Satsuma oranges, and the fruit gave the community its name. The Walker and Callaway families were among the founders.
Lemuel Walker planted some of the first groves, and the area's first post office opened in his home in nineteen oh one. But the orange dream did not last. A series of hard winter freezes killed the citrus, the last devastating one striking in nineteen twenty six, and the town turned to the sea instead.
Herman Callaway became the first charter fishing captain here around nineteen thirteen, launching a tradition that would earn Orange Beach a reputation as one of the great deep sea fishing ports on the Gulf. Nearby is Perdido Pass, the inlet linking Perdido Bay to the open water. Perdido is Spanish for lost, and legend ties the name to a ship that vanished long ago, though that story is more folklore than record.
Orange Beach did not incorporate as a city until nineteen eighty four, growing quickly once the resort boom reshaped this whole coast.
