Baldwin County, Alabama
Baldwin County · Bay Minette · the largest Alabama county by area sits here · Gulf Shores is not the hall
Bay Minette is the hall. Gulf Shores is a beach town.
Baldwin County, Alabama, was erected 1809 — ten years older than the State. It is Alabama’s largest county by land area (about 1,590 square miles of land; larger than Rhode Island). Bay Minette is the seat. Gulf Shores is not the county government. Orange Beach is not the county government. Foley is not the county government. Fairhope and Daphne are Eastern Shore cities — they are not the hall. This is not Baldwin County, Georgia. Four historic seats sat on this map: McIntosh Bluff (now in Mobile County), Blakeley, Daphne, and Bay Minette. Montgomery is the capital of Alabama. It does not sit here.
Places include Bay Minette, Daphne, Fairhope, Foley, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Robertsdale, Loxley, Spanish Fort, and Elberta. 2020 census: 231,767 — fourth-most populous in the State, and growing. This page is Side One for the place. The Sheriff’s job — gulf, bay, and inland pine and Hand Avenue Corrections — is taught at Office of the Sheriff — Baldwin County.
Seven Commissioners. Satellite courthouses are not a second seat.
Baldwin is a seven-member County Commission (the seven-member form dates from 1988). Formal meetings sit the first Tuesday at the Baldwin County Administration Building, 322 Courthouse Square, Bay Minette, and the third Tuesday at the Fairhope Satellite Courthouse. Each member has one vote. They fund roads, beaches, the jail expansion, and the Sheriff’s budget. They do not hire the Sheriff. The people do. Fairhope and Foley host satellite courthouses. A satellite is not a second county seat.
The Sheriff is four years, Article V § 138, 2026 with the Governor. Take office 18 January 2027. The Mayor of Gulf Shores is a city clock. The Mayor of Foley is a city clock.
The Gulf, Mobile Bay, and inland pine sit here. Georgia does not.
Mobile Bay is west. The Gulf of Mexico is south. The Perdido is east toward Florida. I-10 and I-65 both touch this map — I-10 along the south, I-65 at the north Baldwin tip. U.S. 98 and State 59 are the beach roads. Mobile County is west. Washington and Clarke are northwest. Monroe is northeast. Escambia County, Alabama, and Escambia County, Florida, sit east. Staff who paste a Gulf postcard onto Courthouse Square, or treat Foley as the county hall, or file “Baldwin County, Georgia,” are on the wrong county.
How a Bay Minette public finds the Baldwin desk
The Circuit Clerk sits at 312 Courthouse Square, Suite 10, Bay Minette — and also staffs Fairhope and Foley satellites. The Clerk is the Absentee Election Manager. Commission chambers: 322 Courthouse Square. Sheriff headquarters: 320 North Hoyle Avenue. Corrections Center: 200 Hand Avenue. Confirm live addresses on baldwincountyal.gov and sheriff.baldwincountyal.gov. A student who only knows a beach photograph has not found Bay Minette.
Hand Avenue still jails. Fairhope PD does not.
Crime in unincorporated Baldwin — north Baldwin pine, the Eastern Shore between the cities, central Baldwin around Robertsdale, the Fort Morgan peninsula outside town limits — is this Sheriff. Crime in Daphne, Fairhope, Foley, Gulf Shores, and Orange Beach is often municipal police. The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Corrections Center at 200 Hand Avenue is operated by this Sheriff’s Corrections Division. The office itself says so. That is not a separate county Department of Corrections. A jail expansion on that campus added a cell-block tower in 2025. ALEA is the state. Civil process and Circuit Court security at 312 Courthouse Square are the Sheriff. Rights do not change at the Perdido. Remedy for Foley Police is the City. Remedy for a Sheriff’s paper is the Sheriff. Relief when a hurricane comes up the bay is this count first.
Care without inventing a beach chapel as this county
A peace order served in Elberta. A transport from Hand Avenue to Courthouse Square without becoming Gulf Shores Police. Do not invent a church. Do not invent a boardwalk as this badge.
What Baldwin actually watches
Court calendar in Bay Minette — and satellite dockets in Fairhope and Foley that are still this county’s court, not a second sheriff. A tropical system in the Gulf. Ice is rare; storm surge and inland flooding are not. Coordination with city police and ALEA without becoming those departments. Coordination with Mobile’s Sheriff across the bay is mutual aid between two offices, not a merger.
Baldwin snapshot (verify official sources)
- Seat: Bay Minette · Capital of Alabama: Montgomery
- Government: seven Commissioners · Administration Building 322 Courthouse Square · satellites in Fairhope and Foley
- Sheriff: four years · 2026 · patrol and Corrections at 200 Hand Avenue
- Neighbors: Mobile · Washington · Clarke · Monroe · Escambia (AL) · Escambia (FL)
- Not Gulf Shores as the hall · Not Foley as the hall · Not Baldwin County, Georgia
What Bay Minette is not, as this county
- Not Gulf Shores. Not Orange Beach. Not Foley. Not Fairhope as the county government.
- Not Baldwin County, Georgia. Not Mobile County. Not the capital.
- Not a beach postcard as the hall. Not Rhode Island as a second state.
- Not a campaign flyer.