Based on ideas formulated by Henry George in his "Progress and Poverty," Ernest B. Gaston and twelve other reformers from Des Moines, Iowa, incorporated the Fairhope Industrial Association in southern Alabama in 1894. In 1904, after favorable legislation had been adopted by the Alabama legislature, they were reincorporated as the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation. A chance remark that the venture had a "fair hope" of success resulted in the town's name.
A single tax system is a system of taxation based primarily or exclusively on one tax, typically chosen for its special properties. The original proposal by Henry George for a single tax, and consequently the one most commonly known and referred to as a "single tax", is the Georgist proposal for a tax system based exclusively on land value taxes. More recently others have made proposals for a single tax based on other revenue models such as the FairTax proposal which is based on a consumption tax. Flat tax proposals have also been referred to as single taxes.
From the guide to the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation documents MSS. 0501., 1950-1960, (University Libraries Division of Special Collections, The University of Alabama)
