This article is from the fall 2025 edition of Mobile Baykeeper’s print quarterly, CURRENTS. The magazine is mailed to active members who have given more than $50 in the past year. To get on the magazine’s mailing list, donate here.
By Susan Rouillier
From the crest of the Dog River Bridge, one is greeted by a breathtaking vista — graceful sailboats gliding below and the serene sunlit gateway where Dog River meets the wide expanse of Mobile Bay. The current bridge was completed in the late 1980s, but there were two previous bridges that carried people across Dog River.
The First Bridge (1905)
Before the first wooden bridge stretched a quarter mile north of the Dog River’s mouth — near the turn of the twentieth century — travelers crossed by ferry, rocking gently over the waters. Of that long-vanished bridge, only one photograph remains, and only one person who could remember it: 100-year-old Rosa Boone. She held its image in her mind and gave it voice in her poem:
Bouquet of Dried Flowers
Dog River Bridge, made of wood,
gee, crabbing under it was good!
I’d set the line with stringy meat,
a driftwood log, a good seat.
And thus, I’d spend a summer day,
for hours I would stalk my prey,
when Mr. Crab would bite and jerk,
I patiently began my work.
Slowly I would pull that line
then – SCOOP – that blue-shelled prize was mine.
End of story I’ll unfold –
a pot of gumbo was my goal.
The Second Bridge (1929)
As more people moved into the area south of Mobile, land was rapidly being purchased and subdivided — creating a growing need for a bridge to serve the expanding community. At the mouth of Dog River, the new drawbridge built in 1929 lifted like a seesaw — its double leaves balanced by hidden counterweights below. The bridge rose with grace and purpose, linking land and water for more than 60 years. Swift in motion but slow to clear, it paused for passing boats, sometimes holding travelers for 20 long minutes as the river slipped quietly beneath.
The Third Bridge (1990)
The Beachcomber was a colorful icon etched into the memories of thousands of people. George Hall, the son of Mary Pearson Hall who owned the Beachcomber, said, “Bailey’s is where you went to eat, and the Beachcomber is where you went to get drunk.”
Excerpts from a 1988 Mobile Register article recount the final days of the Beachcomber, featuring an interview with its owner, Mary Hall. “The Beachcomber was named after a friend, a guy we knew as Shorty who worked on the railroad. He could often be found walking down the beach picking up bottles to be sold for what he called his ‘mad money’.”
“We’ve had weddings under that giant oak tree, and at one time we had fish fries on Friday nights, and people would be lined up outside. People really liked those mullet fillets. If you kept your paper plate, it was $1.50 for all the fish you could eat. If you got another paper plate, it cost another $1.50. The Beachcomber wasn’t always a club. When it first opened in about 1930, it was a kind of corner grocery store and the only one on Hollinger’s Island with a telephone,” Hall recalled. “Uncle Bob Pearson would sit around the pot-belly stove and if a customer came in and wanted to buy something, but didn’t have the correct change, he might as well go on down the road. Uncle Bob didn’t want to be disturbed.”
Mary lamented the closing. “There won’t be times like the old Dog River Fishing Rodeo when the place was packed to the rafters. Those days will be gone, along with lots of memories.” Ms. Hall did not believe there was a need for a multi-million-dollar bridge. “They could put it on the other side just as well,” she said.
Although Ms. Hall and her sons fought against the state and the bridge construction, in the end they knew they would be out of business because the construction required the frontage of the Beachcomber. The Beachcomber became history on Wednesday, November 16, 1988, when it was boarded closed.
The Beachcomber and Elvis
Mary’s son, George Hall, loved to reminisce about the time Elvis came to Dog River. George spoke of long rides on horseback along the Dog River riverbanks, Elvis in the saddle beside him, wide-eyed at the wild beauty of the place. George introduced him to his friends — the river boys — rough-edged, good-hearted, and full of stories themselves. “Elvis thought he was tough, but the river boys were tougher,” remembered George Hall.
One night, they took Elvis to the Beachcomber, where music spilled out the doors and the air was humid and thick.
The Nightclub Scene of South Mobile
Before its annexation into the city of Mobile in 1956, the area south of town had a reputation for being wilder, freer, and far more flamboyant than the city proper — a place where the rules bent with the music and the nights stretched long. In the 1940s and ’50s, this vibrant stretch was home to 19 churches — and nearly as many nightclubs, as if salvation and sin danced side by side.
The clubs that dotted or clustered near old Cedar Point Road (now Dauphin Island Parkway) boasted names as bold and colorful as the scenes inside: The Vogue shimmered with glamour, The Brown Derby swayed to smoky jazz, and Curtis Gordon’s Radio Ranch pulsed with honky-tonk charm. Don Q, Frazier’s, and Rio Vista drew locals, while The Plaza, and The Curve, promised wild turns and unpredictable nights. Club Rendezvous lived up to its name, The Beachcomber captured the carefree rhythm of coastal life, Allie Levene’s Carousel spun through songs and stories, and Happy Landing offered one last toast before dawn. This was no sleepy Southern outpost — it was a nighttime playground, equal parts grit and glitter.
Elvis Performed at Radio Ranch Night Club
A young Elvis Presley took the stage in 1955 at Curtis Gordon’s Radio Ranch Night Club early in his meteoric rise. He performed there multiple times, sharing the bill with Curtis Gordon and his Radio Ranch Boys. A Mobile Register ad from June 29 and 30, 1955, reads:
A subsid. of Do Drive-In, 8:30 p.m.–1:00 a.m., 4½ hours of fun and dancing, In Person, Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill: ‘That’s All Right Mama,’ ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky,’ ‘Good Rockin’ Tonight,’ ‘Heartbreaker,’ plus Curtis Gordon’s Radio Ranch Boys.
Not everyone welcomed Elvis’s appearance. Some local churches thought his “gyrations” were scandalous and even organized record-burning events in protest, former resident Ivan Boatwright recalled. The controversy was as hot as the music. Some locals believe that Elvis paid tribute to the Radio Ranch in his song, “Guitar Man,” with the lyric: “Till I found myself in Mobile, Alabama/ At a club they call Big Jack’s.”
But there’s no definitive evidence that “Big Jack’s” was a reference to Curtis Gordon or his club. Curtis Gordon had already made a name for himself before opening Radio Ranch. Between 1952 and 1954, he released a string of successful 45s on RCA Victor, including the regional favorites “Draggin,” “Mobile Alabama,” and “Rock Roll Jump and Jive.” Radio Ranch became the largest nightclub in Mobile.
For a brief, golden moment — before the world knew his name — Elvis was a voice rising from the heart of South Mobile, singing at the Radio Ranch with the raw magic that would one day shake the world. He wasn’t just part of the scene; he lit it up, capturing the untamed spirit of the place and leaving behind an echo that still lingers.
