Malbis Memorial Church, built in honor of Jason Malbis
Known originally as the Malbis Plantation, the settlement was founded in 1906 by Jason Malbis. Malbis was a Greekphilanthropist born in Doumena, Greece as Antonius Markopoulos. Malbis had been an Orthodox monk[3] before coming to the United States to investigate the condition of fellow Greeks who had immigrated to the US.[4] He changed his name to Jason Malbis and migrated south to Alabama.
While traveling through Alabama, Malbis became enamored with Baldwin County and purchased the land that would become the Greek colony.[5] The community was populated for many years mostly by those of either secular or religious Greek heritage.[6] The Malbis Memorial Church, a Greek Orthodox church, was built by the settlers and still stands today.
The community once included the Malbis Bakery, an ice plant, plant nursery, cannery, hotels, restaurants, its own power plant, turpentine, dairy, lumber, water towers and many acres of farmland. During the peak of the colony's success, the economy was largely based upon providing table food to nearby Mobile, Alabama.[5] Much of the land was sold for commercial development, including a 500-acre (2.0 km2) soybean field, which is currently covered by a large retail shopping mall known as Eastern Shore Centre.[7][8]
