In 1903, Postmaster Charles 'Dewey' Slocum named the community post office Barnwell in honor of Rev. Robert Woodward Barnwell, an Alabama Episcopal Bishop. The post office first operated from the Slocum home and later from the Basil Jerkiewicz store, then closed in 1942 with mail processed through Fairhope. The first Barnwell School was built in 1906, and by 1910 Barnwell had two stores, a saw mill, an excelsior factory on Weeks Bay, and twenty-five families. A 1916 hurricane destroyed the school, which was rebuilt in 1918 on County Rd 3; after school consolidation in 1940 sent students to a larger school, the building became the Community Center, where the Farmers Club and Women's Auxiliary held fundraisers for community improvements from 1958 to 1964. Beckwith Lodge on Weeks Bay opened as an Episcopal Retreat in 1933, and the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve was established in 1986 to protect and promote the vital functions of the estuary and associated habitats in the Weeks Bay watershed. The farming community of Cavanac, stretching from Mullet Point to Fish River, was first named for an affluent French Louisiana family that moved there in 1550. By 1860, most residents lived closer to the water in an area called Meadow Springs, and they built a road to Foley that included a ferry crossing of Fish River; when the road was paved in 1947, the first bridge was built near that crossing. During the 1870s and 1880s, the Bishop, Nolte, Nelson, Little, Underwood, Childress, and McKenzie families were among the first landowners, and the community's farming heritage grew from their raising vegetables for markets in Mobile and New Orleans. Circuit Rider Rev. Joseph Nelson, Jr. moved there in the 1830s, organized the local Baptist Church, donated land for Brook Cedron Cemetery in 1840, and was buried there in 1881.