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work had been done in Mobile, in spite of a very low financial tide. The bars in the bay had been re-cut; the Sand Island light re-built; railroads secured and trunk-line connections made. The reconstruction of the hotel was a part of this courageous ground swell of preparation. In the Eighties, the tide began to flow in. River traffic, rail traffic, export traffic?all were up, again. Electricity was now about to come to the aid of his elder brother, Steam. The gay Nineties were just around the corner! Mobile was again on the march?the entire South was; and with them, as always before, marched Point Clear. The Flush Thirties, ?The Golden Fifties,?The Gay Nineties; and the last of these was not the least.
Come with us to Grand Hotel, II, in this time of its hey-day. Let?s ?if we can?make those days live again, for one memory-laden moment.
It is a mid-summer afternoon, let us say. The hotel is open the year ?round, now. There is a winter season, too, for Point Clear is nationally known as the ?Queen of Southern Resorts.? But the summer season, as always, is the peak of the year. Great throngs of pleasure seekers are everywhere?on the piers, along the beaches and the board walks, in the halls and on the galleries of the hotel. The direct boat from New Orleans to Point Clear is arriving with more crowds aboard; the boat from Mobile, also. Bands are crashing away on the decks of both, and their whistles are blowing, as they make their way slowly to the piers?slowly, because a regatta is in progress,
In the years preceding the War Between the States, Point Clear was known as the social center of the South
Shortly after the War Between the States, a second Grand Hotel replaced the
first Grand Hotel
and they are weaving their way carefully through a great fleet of sailboats, that hover and flutter around the Point for miles, like a great swarm of butterflies; slowly, because racing sculls, manned by brighdy clad crews are sweeping round them; and because they are passing excursion steamers, outwardbound, down the bay, with pleasure parties aboard. Carriages and bicycles dash in and out along the hotel grounds carrying picnic parties for the shore ride along the shell road drives. Another band plays gaily in front of the hotel. The incoming steamers touch the piers; a salute cannon booms out, cheers of greeting ring all along the wharves; handkerchiefs and parasols flutter gaily in the bright sunshine . . . And then comes evening. Everywhere along the Point, like aerial bonfires, Georgia torches?those cages filled with blazing pitchpine knots?make splashes of golden brightness. Overhead, the moon beams and the stars twinkle. The Grand Hotel is a blaze of light. The tinkle of glassware is heard from the Texas; that building so-called because, containing the barroom, it stood apart from the other buildings, as Texas stood remote from the nation in early days. In the dining-room of the hotel a multitude of ?men and women prominent throughout the South? are gathered to enjoy an evening meal prepared under the direction of a renowned Parisian chef. The strains of an orchestra float out across the great lawns. Later there will be a concert by a world-famed tenor; still later, under the great chandeliers in the ballroom, dancing. From a cottage on the hotel grounds, there will come the roll of the wheel and the click of the ball as the quiet voice of the croupier bids "Faites vos jeux, Messieurs!? and all night long, fortunes will be staked and won?or lost?in this building known as