DAUPHIN ISLAND

island in the Gulf of Mexico, at the entrance to Mobile Bay off the southwest coast of Alabama, U.S. Included in Mobile county, the island is about 15 miles (24 km) long and 5 miles (8 km) wide. It was visited in 1699 by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who had been sent by Louis XIV to establish a base for French colonization of Louisiana. Originally called Massacre Island (because of human bones found on the shore), it was renamed (1708) for Dauphin Louis, duke of Burgundy. It became a Spanish possession in 1762, when France ceded its territory east of the Mississippi River to Spain; in 1763, by the Treaty of Paris, it went to England; 20 years later it was returned to Spain. Although the United States claimed it in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase, possession was not gained until 1813. Fort Gaines, begun on the island's eastern point in 1822, was captured during the American Civil War by Union forces under Admiral David G. Farragut in the Battle of Mobile Bay (1864). The island now serves as a recreational area.