Mobile Alabama History & Facts

Mobile is the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 census, down from 195,111 at of the 2010 United States Census. It is the fourth-most-populous city in Alabama, after Huntsville, Birmingham, and Montgomery.

Alabama's only saltwater port, Mobile is located on the Mobile River at the head of Mobile Bay on the north-central Gulf Coast. The Port of Mobile has always played a key role in the economic health of the city, beginning with the settlement as an important trading center between the French colonists and Native Americans, down to its current role as the 12th-largest port in the United States.

Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile metropolitan area. This region of 430,197 residents is composed Mobile and Washington counties; it is the third-largest metropolitan statistical area in the state. Mobile is the largest city in the Mobile–Daphne−Fairhope Combined Statistical Area, with a total population of 661,964, the second largest such area fully in the state.

Mobile was founded in 1702 by the French as the first capital of Louisiana. During its first 100 years, Mobile was a colony of France, then Great Britain, and lastly Spain. Mobile became a part of the United States in 1813, with the annexation by President James Madison of West Florida from Spain.

During the American Civil War, the city surrendered to Federal forces on April 12, 1865, after Union victories at two forts protecting the city. This, along with the news of Johnston's surrender negotiations with Sherman, led General Richard Taylor to seek a meeting with his Union counterpart, Maj. Gen. Edward R. S. Canby. The two generals met several miles north of Mobile on May 2. After agreeing to a 48-hour truce, the generals enjoyed an al fresco luncheon of food, drink, and lively music. Canby offered Taylor the same terms agreed upon between Lee and Grant at Appomattox. Taylor accepted the terms and surrendered his command on May 4 at Citronelle, Alabama.

Considered one of the Gulf Coast's cultural centers, Mobile has several art museums, a symphony orchestra, professional opera, professional ballet company, and a large concentration of historic architecture. Mobile is known for having the oldest organized Carnival or Mardi Gras celebrations in the United States. Alabama's French Creole population celebrated this festival from the first decade of the 18th century. Beginning in 1830, Mobile was host to the first formally organized Carnival mystic society to celebrate with a parade in the United States. (In New Orleans, such a group is called a krewe.)

The European settlement of Mobile began with French colonists, who in 1702 constructed Fort Louis de la Louisiane, at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff on the Mobile River, as the first capital of the French colony of La Louisiane. It was founded by French Canadian brothers Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, to establish control over France's claims to La Louisiane. Bienville was appointed as royal governor of French Louisiana in 1701. Mobile's Roman Catholic parish was established on July 20, 1703, by Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, Bishop of Quebec. The parish was the first French Catholic parish established on the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Mobile is located in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is 168 miles (270 km) by highway southwest of Montgomery, the state capital; 58 miles (93 km) west of Pensacola, Florida; and 144 miles (232 km) northeast of New Orleans.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 180.1 square miles (466 km2), with 139.5 square miles (361 km2) of it being land, and 40.6 square miles (105.2 km2), or 22.5% of the total, being covered by water. The elevation in Mobile ranges from 10 feet (3 m) on Water Street in downtown to 211 feet (64 m) at the Mobile Regional Airport.

Famous Peoples From Mobile Alabama

Philip Stewart Gordon

(born July 6, 1970) is an American professional poker player, commentator and author.

Gordon was born in El Paso, Texas. He spent his formative years in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Gordon began attending Georgia Tech at the age of 15 while still attending high school. At the end of the 11th grade and after being awarded the National Merit Scholarship, Gordon dropped out of high school and attended Georgia Tech full-time. Gordon graduated from Georgia Tech with a B.S. degree in computer science in 1991. After stints working at Santa Cruz Operation and Lockheed, Gordon joined start-up Netsys Technologies as their first hired employee. In 1996, Netsys was acquired by Cisco Systems, making him a millionaire, and in 1997 he retired from the high-tech industry to travel the world and to play poker.

Gordon currently lives in Newport, Washington, with his wife, Barb, and their two boys, Xander and Zachary.

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