As many of you know, J.P. Folkes, a Dothan pioneer who was the original owner of much of the property present-day downtown Dothan is built upon, came to Poplar Head after working as a salt maker on St. Andrews Bay during the Civil War. Well, there are many other Southeast Alabama connections to the Confederate salt works on St. Andrews Bay. On the morning of December 10, 1863, the guns of the U.S.S. Restless fired upon the town of St. Andrews and burned the whole place to the ground. On the same day the U.S.S. Bloomer carried Yankee raiders up West Bay to destroy the Confederate salt works on West Bay. One year earlier the Yankees out of Pensacola had invaded Alabama and stolen the Bloomer from where it was docked at Geneva. At the time of the December 1863 raid on West Bay, Abbeville's  JAMES AUGUSTUS CLENDINEN was in charge of the Confederate government's salt works there. https://www.navyandmarine.org/ondeck/1862saltraids.htm