The rise and decline of the Redneck Riviera : an insider's history of the Florida-Alabama coast

330 Pages·2012·4.57 MB·English

by  Jackson

THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE REDNECK RIVIERA
THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE
Redneck Riviera
An Insider’s History of the Florida-Alabama Coast
HARVEY H. JACKSON III
Publication of this work was made possible, in part, by a generous gift
from the University of Georgia Press Friends Fund.
© 2012 by the University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
www.ugapress.org
All rights reserved Maps by David Wasserboehr
Designed by Erin Kirk New
Set in 10.3/14 Chapparal Pro with Mullen Hand display
Manufactured by Thomson-Shore and John P. Pow Company The paper in this
book meets the guidelines for permanence and
durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council on Library Resources.
Printed in the United States of America
16 15 14 13 12 c 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jackson, Harvey H.
The rise and decline of the Redneck Riviera : an insider’s history of the
Florida-Alabama coast/Harvey H. Jackson III.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-3400-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8203-3400-
6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Gulf Coast (Fla.)—History. 2. Gulf Coast (Ala.)
—History.
3. Gulf Coast (Fla.)—Social life and customs.
4. Gulf Coast (Ala.)—Social life and customs.
5. Tourism—Florida—Gulf Coast—History.
6. Tourism—Alabama, Gulf Coast—History.
7. Tourism—Social aspects—Florida—Gulf Coast.
8. Tourism—Social aspects—Alabama—Gulf Coast.
8. Tourism—Social aspects—Alabama—Gulf Coast.
I. Title.
F317.W5J34 2011
975.9’9—dc23 2011040110
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available ISBN for this digital
edition: 978-0-82034378-5
To Suzanne, who brought me back to the beach

Contents
INTRODUCTION Alabama Dreaming
ONE The Coast Jack Rivers Knew
TWO The War and after It
THREE Bring ’em Down, Keep ’em Happy, and Keep ’em Spending
FOUR Times They Were A-Changing
FIVE The Redneck Riviera Rises
SIX A Storm Named Frederic
SEVEN Sorting Out after the Storm
EIGHT Playing by Different Rules
NINE Storms and Sand, BOBOS and Snowbirds
TEN Trouble in Paradise
ELEVEN Taming the Redneck Riviera
TWELVE Making Money “Going Wild”
THIRTEEN Selling the Redneck Riviera
FOURTEEN “Where Nature Did Its Best”
FIFTEEN Stumbling into the Future
SIXTEEN Who Wants a Beach That Is Oily?
SEVENTEEN The Last Summer
Acknowledgments
Essay on Sources
Index
THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE REDNECK RIVIERA
INTRODUCTION
Alabama Dreaming
IN SEPTEMBER 1944, on the island of Oahu, half a world away from his south
Alabama home, a lonely Corporal Jewel Rivers, “Jack” to his friends, wrote his
wife and infant son of the wonders he had seen—the coast, an active volcano,
and Honolulu, which he described as “quite a town.” His journey had been a
long one; it would be longer still. “This is only a stepping stone to where I am
going,” he told them. The war with Japan had brought him this far, and it would
take him the rest of the way.
While his mind was on what came next, it was also on what would be
waiting in the States when the fighting was over. He had seen Waikiki Beach,
with its curving stretch of sand dominated by the famous Royal Hawaiian Hotel
and Diamond Head. Waikiki was “very pretty,” but there was somewhere else he
would rather be. “I’ll take the good old Gulf Shores any old day,” he wrote.
“Give me Ala., in the U.S.A., and I’ll be satisfied.”
Not long after he mailed that letter Corporal Rivers shipped out to New
Guinea. Promoted to sergeant, he served as the waist gunner on a B-24 Liberator,
flying with the Ninetieth Bomber Group. On November 19, his plane took off to
attack a Japanese base on Mindanao Island in the Philippines.
It did not return.
Jack Rivers never saw Gulf Shores again.
But many who served in that war did come back; and in the years that
followed, veterans of the front lines and of the home front sought out sand and
surf to relax and recover. Along the Alabama and Florida Gulf Coast, from the
mouth of Mobile Bay east to St. Andrews Bay at Panama City, residents of the
lower South made the beach their own. Children of the Depression and of
conflict, more hopeful, indeed optimistic, than they had been in a decade, they
drove down on New Deal–paved, military-improved roads in automobiles they
bought on easy credit or with cashed-in war bonds. They came on vacations
from jobs that they were trained and educated for under the gi Bill. They left
behind homes financed through that same program. Few if any cared that their
ticket to the middle class had been punched by the federal government.
Along this coast folks from the lower South found a way of life, a culture