Dauphin Island School — Little Red Schoolhouse

The one-room schoolhouse on Dauphin Island burned in 1929, and the replacement went up in 1931 — a central hallway with two classrooms on either side, two restrooms at the back. The structure was originally sited on the island's east end, moved to the west side in 1956, then relocated again in 2017 closer to its first site. One classroom later became the principal's office and a conference room. A library and cafeteria were added in 1991. The school remained in use until 2016.

Today it operates as a welcome center, museum, and library — listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. The island itself is a barrier strip in the Gulf of Mexico, its eastern end defining the mouth of Mobile Bay. Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville anchored here in 1699 and named it Massacre Island after finding a pile of human skeletons — actually a Mississippian burial mound broken open by a hurricane, not evidence of violence. The French later established a port with a fort, chapel, and warehouses, using the island as a trading depot because Mobile Bay was too shallow for ocean-going vessels to travel up to Fort Louis de La Louisiane. The name changed to Dauphin Island around 1707 to honor the French heir apparent.

The schoolhouse that stands now is a working record of how a small Gulf Coast island kept a school open through moves and additions, then found a second purpose when the students left.