E B Gaston father of Fairhope Alabama

Descended from a long line of "do'ers" and "thinkers" dating back to a rebellious noble ancestor named Jean Gaston de Foix, a French Huguenot in the sixteen-hundreds, Ernest Berry Gaston is considered the father of the Fairhope Single Tax Colony. His father, a self-taught scholar of Latin and Greek who was hailed as both a good writer and compelling orator, seems to have passed those abilities to his last son. Gaston is described by his grandson, the historian Dr. P. M. Gaston as having a "wide ranging curiosity along with energy and intellect to pursue it." He was a speaker with a commanding presence, a gifted singer, and a writer of some merit. All talents he would need, when at the age of twenty-eight, he completely changed directions in life to pursue a solution to what he saw as mankind's headlong rush into inequality and servitude. After graduation from Drake University at twenty-four he began a very successful career in real-estate. Between twenty-four and twenty-eight, he had time to get married, start a family, invent a snow plow, get elected to justice of the peace, serve as town recorder, City Council member, and fire chief of University Place.

In August of 1889, he bought the Suburban Advocate, a small newspaper serving University Place, setting in motion events which culminated in the creation of the Fairhope Community some five years later. Gaston read deeply the great social writers of his time. Some of the more influential of the books he is known to have studied include Henry George's "Progress and Poverty", Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward" and "The Cooperative Commonwealth" by Laurence Gronlund. In the autumn of 1889, Gaston brought together a small group of friends to form the Des Moines Investigating Club-- a club to "investigate" the social and economic condition of the United States by keeping its members informed on the latest thoughts on the subject. It was from Henry George's ideas that the "Single Tax" concept seems to have sprung. Gaston and friends took this concept, mixed it with some of the Populist ideas of the time, added his essay on "true cooperative individualism," threw in some good old common sense about the nature of humankind and came up with a constitution for the formation of a community. They renamed their group " The Fairhope Industrial Association"; its name coming from a remark made by one of the members that the "idea had a fair hope of succeeding." The group's charter was "to establish and conduct a model community or colony, free from all forms of private monopoly, and secure to its members therein, equality of opportunity, the full reward of individual efforts, and the benefits of co-operation in matters of general concern."

On the evening of November 12, 1894, the group left Des Moines Iowa for the deep South to create The Fairhope Single Tax Colony. For the next 40 years Ernest Berry Gaston labored to bring his dream of a better way of life to reality in Southern Alabama. Unlike many dreamers, Gaston's efforts prevailed and the result exists today, still helping to shape the lives of the people of Fairhope Alabama.