Dauphin Island in the early 1950s was not the place it is today. There were roughly 200 residents, no bridge, and no particular urgency about any of it. Villagers reached Mobile by boat when they needed to and returned when they were finished. Sand dunes stood as tall as houses. Goats nested in low-hanging tree limbs. Cattle wandered the town and the beach.
Into that landscape came Aubrey Alison Bishop Jr., a pilot, and by every account an exceptional one. He flew B-24s in World War II and later operated reconnaissance aircraft along the East German border during the Korean Conflict. He flew fixed-wing planes and helicopters with equal ease.
He also built Dauphin Island’s first motel, and he painted it bright pink.
The Moulin Rouge
Bishop named the motel after the Parisian cabaret. “Daddy was fond of Paris, which he saw during the war,” says his daughter, Sherry Bishop.
The building held seven rooms. Two were for the family, one for Aubrey and his wife Doris, and one for the children, Sherry, Ava and Aubrey III. The remaining five were rented to guests. The family spent summers on the island and the rest of the year at their home in Mobile.
Located on the island’s west side, the Moulin Rouge turned out to serve a second, entirely unintended function.
“Shrimpers used to tell us, when they were offshore, the one thing they could spot was that blip of pink on the sand,” Sherry recalls. “When they found the shoreline’s pink dot, they knew where they were.”
A seven-room motel had become a navigational aid.
Landing an Airplane Wherever He Pleased
Bishop worked at Brookley Air Force Base before the war and returned afterward as superintendent of aircraft, staying until the base closed in 1969. Getting to an island with no airport required improvisation, and he was equal to it. He landed his L19 Birddog on the Dauphin Island Bridge while it was still under construction, for no reason other than that he wanted to. Later he landed a helicopter on it, dropping a coin at the toll booth while hovering. On the second occasion, someone called the authorities, who suggested he stop. He stopped.
He described his technique for beach landings in a 1994 interview: “The trick to landing on the island, especially the beaches, was to touch down near the surf on the wet sand, hard and compact. Softer sand farther from the water looked safer, but the softer sand would dig you in and curtail your activities for a while.”
He gave rides to neighbors and friends, many of whom had never been in an aircraft of any kind.
Wild and Free
“We lived in a different era of culture, attitude and environment back in the ’50s,” Sherry says. “The island was wild and free and, as children, we lived in, explored and became part of the natural world.”
Children had charge accounts at Ship N Shore, the Isle Dauphine Club, the Ice Cream Parlor and the Marina Restaurant. Parents settled the balances monthly. Kids fished, crabbed, gathered oysters, rode go-carts and traveled in goat-drawn wagons.
It was also a place with an edge. A bull named Butterfly, so called for the markings on his body and not for any delicacy of temperament, once routed a man who had been part of a crew sent to remove him from the island. The bull caught the man’s belt loop with a horn and left him in the woods wearing considerably less than he had arrived in.
The Fishing Rodeo and the Boxer
The annual fishing rodeo drew locals and, occasionally, celebrities. At age nine, Sherry met heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano, who had come to the island for a boxing match. He talked with her and signed her autograph book. So did the 1956 rodeo queen, Joyce Van Tassell.
July 2, 1955
The Dauphin Island Bridge opened on July 2, 1955, connecting the village to Mobile and everything beyond it. Residents understood immediately that something had been gained and something had been lost.
The island’s built history since then has been written largely by weather. The Island Casino was swept into the Gulf by Hurricane Camille in 1969. The Holiday Inn and the Capri were destroyed by Hurricane Frederic in 1979, which also took the bridge itself. A replacement bridge was completed in 1982.
What Remains
The Moulin Rouge was sold in the early 1960s and later bulldozed. Nothing of it survives. Shrimpers offshore no longer have a pink dot to steer by.
Aubrey Bishop died on August 15, 2008, at the age of 90. Doris died in 2013, also at 90. His obituary reads: “He has now stored his plane in the hangar on the field where flyers go.”
Justine Bixler, the youngest of his five grandchildren, still keeps the compass from his airplane in her china cabinet. “I occasionally look at it and pretend I was there,” she says.
Dauphin Island today counts more than 1,000 residents and receives thousands of visitors who cross a bridge that was once only an idea. But for the people who knew it before, the island’s character is not in question.
“This place is part of who I am,” Sherry says.