Mike Odom

modom@gulfcoastnewspapers.com

FAIRHOPE, Ala. - Old-time music, period dress, scavenger hunts, history trivia games and refreshments served in the city’s original council chambers will highlight tonight’s celebration in honor of that November day in 1894 when a small group of people assembled to found a town they believed and correctly predicted had “a fair hope of success.”

The original Round Up Day was Nov. 15, 1894, but the annual celebration will take place tonight at the Fairhope Museum of History to coincide with First Friday ArtWalk.

It was 116 years ago this month that Fairhope founder E.B. Gaston “declared that all those ready to establish this utopian colony meet on the Eastern shores of Mobile Bay,” according to a city press release. “On that day, 28 people from Chicago to Los Angeles met and established Fairhope, Alabama, as a ‘model community.’”

The annual event to commemorate that “Round Up Day,” as Gaston called it, was established by the city in 2008.

“People may want to drop by the celebration because of the unusual entertainment we have,” said Donnie Barrett, museum director. “The band is like an ongoing Vaudeville act playing popular old-fashioned music. They can learn about our town’s founding, enjoy our snacks, play a Fairhope history trivia contest, do a jig on the music and see some nicely-crafted costumes, which our museum ladies have taken great pride in producing.”

Tonight’s event will feature the music of the Kracker Dan Band, which performed at last year, as well as a scavenger hunt going on all evening with prizes awarded.

“Fairhope’s founding was different because it was a planned community founded by dreamers who wanted to correct some of the problems of society and make a more perfect place that was friendly to the worker and upcoming family,” Barrett said.  “That is why it is called a ‘utopian experiment.’ This ‘crazy bunch of Yankees,’as they were soon known, attracted all sorts of artisans, reformers, writers, free thinkers and dreamers.  We still live with that legacy, which makes us what we are today, different from the agrarian towns that sprang up around us.”

The annual Round Up Day event will celebrate Fairhope’s founding tonight, Nov. 5, from 6 - 9 p.m. at the Fairhope Museum of History.

For more information, call 929-1471 or 929-1466.