Mobile, Alabama

Mobile is the seat of Mobile County and the oldest city in Alabama, located on the Mobile River at the head of Mobile Bay on the north-central Gulf Coast [1]. French brothers Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded it in 1702, and it became the capital of French Louisiana before passing under British, Spanish and finally American rule. It is nicknamed the Port City, the Azalea City and the City of Six Flags, and its residents are Mobilians. The 2020 census counted 187,041 people, and a 2023 annexation raised the estimate to 204,689, making Mobile the second-largest city in Alabama after Huntsville [1].

Name and early exploration

The city is named for the Mobile tribe, whose language became the basis of Mobilian Jargon, a Choctaw-derived trade language. Spanish explorer Alonso Alvarez de Pineda explored the area in 1519, Hernando de Soto came about two decades later searching for gold, and Tristan de Luna founded a short-lived settlement nearby in 1559 that was devastated by a hurricane [1][2].

The French colony (1702 to 1763)

The French founded the colony in 1702 at the Old Mobile Site, where Fort Louis de la Louisiane was built on a bluff about 27 miles up the river. Mobile served as the French colonial capital from 1702 to 1711, a Catholic parish was established in July 1703 as the first on the Gulf Coast, and in 1704 the ship Pelican brought 23 Frenchwomen to the colony. Floods, epidemics and raids plagued the settlement, and the population fell from 279 in 1708 to 178 in 1710 [1][2].

In 1711 Bienville ordered the town relocated to its present site closer to the bay, and many Mobilian people moved with the colonists. Construction began in 1723 on a brick fort later renamed Fort Conde. The colonial capital moved to Biloxi in 1720 [1][2].

British and Spanish rule

The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ceded Mobile to Britain, and Fort Conde became Fort Charlotte. The city briefly served as capital of British West Florida in the 1760s. In 1780 Bernardo de Galvez captured Mobile in the Battle of Fort Charlotte, and Spain held it until 1813, when U.S. General James Wilkinson seized it during the War of 1812 [1][2].

Becoming an American port

The Mississippi Territory included Mobile in 1813, and the Alabama Territorial Legislature chartered the Bank of Mobile on November 20, 1818; it operated until 1884. By the 1820s Mobile was a major exporting center, shipping cotton to the Northeast and Europe, and by 1840 it was second only to New Orleans in U.S. cotton exports. In 1860 the city had a population of 29,258, the 27th largest in the country. The port still anchors the local economy; see Port of Mobile and Cotton Production in Alabama [1][2].

Civil War and recovery

The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley was built in Mobile. Admiral David Farragut’s fleet broke through Confederate defenses and entered Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, and the city surrendered on April 12, 1865. On May 25, 1865 a waterfront ordnance depot explosion killed about 300 workers [1][2].

By 1879 Mobile faced near-complete economic collapse, and the state repealed the city charter and placed it under an appointed committee until 1886, by which time timber had replaced cotton as the chief export. Federal grants of $3 million deepened the harbor channels in the Progressive Era, the city adopted commission government in 1911, and the Waterman Steamship Corporation was founded in 1919. The Alabama State Docks were created in 1922, and the 10-mile Cochran causeway across the Mobile-Tensaw Delta was completed in 1927 [1][2].

World War II and after

The Bankhead Tunnel, a one-mile underwater tunnel on Highway 90, was begun by the Works Progress Administration in 1938 and completed in 1941. Between 1940 and 1943, 89,000 war workers moved to Mobile, the county population grew by more than 60 percent and the shipyards completed hundreds of ships; Mobile was one of 18 U.S. cities building Liberty ships. Brookley Field, established in 1941 as an air-supply depot, was the city’s largest postwar employer until it closed in 1969, costing 16,000 jobs. The Mobile Aeroplex now occupies 1,650 acres at Brookley with more than 70 companies [1][2].

Government

Mobile has a mayor-council government with seven single-member council districts, adopted in 1985 after a federal court decision on at-large voting. Elections are nonpartisan and held every four years. Mike Dow’s String of Pearls Initiative led to downtown restoration in the late 1980s, Sam Jones became the first African American mayor in 2005, and Sandy Stimpson served from 2013 until November 2025. The city has about 2,167 employees, a 5 percent sales tax and 2024 revenue of $514.3 million [1].

Geography and climate

Mobile covers 180.07 square miles, about 22.5 percent of it water, with elevations from 10 feet on Water Street to 211 feet at Mobile Regional Airport. The climate is humid subtropical. A 2007 study ranked Mobile the wettest city in the contiguous 48 states, with 66.3 inches of rain a year on about 120 days. The record low was -1 degrees Fahrenheit on February 13, 1899 and the record high 106 degrees on August 26, 2023. Hurricanes have included Frederic (1979), Opal (1995), Ivan (2004), Katrina (2005, with an 11.45-foot storm surge), Sally (2020) and Zeta [1]. See Climate of Alabama.

Economy

Major industries include aerospace, steel, shipbuilding, retail, medicine and manufacturing. The Port of Mobile is the 12th-largest U.S. port by tonnage. Austal USA, founded in 1999, builds ships on Blakeley Island, and BAE Systems Southeast Shipyards on Pinto Island acquired in May 2010 employs about 600. In 2010 ThyssenKrupp opened a large steel facility north of the city, now owned by AM/NS Calvert with about 1,500 employees [1][2].

The Airbus assembly plant for the A320 family opened in 2015 as the first in the United States, and A220 production began in August 2019. The largest employers are the University of South Alabama (11,500), Mobile County Public Schools (7,200), Infirmary Health (4,700), Austal USA (3,000) and Airbus (2,000). In 2020 education, health care and social assistance made up 25.0 percent of the workforce. See Airbus and Economy of Alabama [1][2].

Mardi Gras

Mobile hosted the first Mardi Gras festivities in North America, with Carnival first celebrated in 1703, and the Boeuf Gras Society, the first Carnival society, was founded in 1711. The Cowbellion de Rakin Society held the first organized masked parade in 1830, horse-drawn floats appeared in 1840, and Striker’s Independent Society, formed in 1843, is the oldest surviving mystic society in the United States. Joseph Stillwell Cain revived the parades after the Civil War. Carnival season starts in November, parades begin after January 5, and the celebration ends at midnight on Mardi Gras Day [1][2].

Culture and attractions

The Battleship Memorial Park displays the World War II battleship USS Alabama and the submarine USS Drum, and the Fort of Colonial Mobile is a reconstruction of Fort Conde. Bellingrath Gardens and Home covers 65 acres on Fowl River, Mobile Botanical Gardens has 100 acres, and the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center, the Mobile Museum of Art, the History Museum of Mobile and the Mobile Carnival Museum are in the city. More than 150 historic buildings and districts are on the National Register, from Government Street Presbyterian Church (1837) to the USS Drum, and the Duffie Oak on Caroline Street is about 300 years old [1][2]. See Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Mobile-Tensaw River Delta.

The Saenger Theatre opened in 1927 and is home to the Mobile Symphony Orchestra, the Joe Jefferson Players are Alabama’s oldest continuously running community theatre (1947), and the Greater Gulf State Fair has been held every October since 1955. The Azalea Trail Maids serve as official cultural ambassadors, and the Azalea Trail Run 10K has been held since 1978 [1].

Education

The Mobile County Public School System has about 52,000 students in 92 schools. The Alabama School of Mathematics and Science, founded in 1989, is the state’s only fully residential public high school. Higher education includes the University of South Alabama (1963), Spring Hill College (chartered 1830, the first Catholic college in the Southeast), the University of Mobile, Faulkner University’s Mobile campus and Bishop State Community College (1927) [1][2].

Sports and transportation

The Senior Bowl has been held in Mobile since 1951, the South Alabama Jaguars began football in 2007 and moved to the FBS in 2013, and Hancock Whitney Stadium opened in 2020 with a capacity of 25,450. Magnolia Grove offers 36 holes on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, and the Mobile BayBears played at Hank Aaron Stadium from 1997 to 2019. Interstate 10 crosses the city east to west, Interstate 65 runs north and Interstate 165 links Prichard to downtown. Four Class I railroads serve the area, and Mobile Regional Airport has commercial service [1].

Notable people

Baseball Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Satchel Paige, Billy Williams, Willie McCovey and Ozzie Smith were from Mobile, as were musicians Jimmy Buffett and James Reese Europe and writers Eugene Walter, William March, Albert Murray and Eugene Sledge [2]. See Gulf Coast of Alabama.

FAQs

When was Mobile founded? In 1702 by the French; the town moved to its present site in 1711.

Why is Mobile called the Port City? It has Alabama’s only deep-water port.

Where did Mardi Gras start in North America? In Mobile, with Carnival first celebrated in 1703.

How many people live in Mobile? 187,041 in the 2020 census.

What are Mobile’s nicknames? The Port City, the Azalea City and the City of Six Flags.

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Mobile, Alabama
2. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Mobile

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 10, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue