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Note: In 1519, a Spanish expedition sailed up Mobile Bay about 27 years after Columbus first landed in the New World.
France ceded the Mobile area, and the territory east of the Mississippi, to Great Britain in 1763. Spain captured Mobile in 1779 and controlled the city for twenty-one years.
In 1800, Napoleon forced Spain to cede the province to France, then in 1803, Thomas Jefferson, purchased the territory from France. Americans quickly began to move into the Mobile territory. When the War of 1812 broke out, President Madison directed General Wilkinson to capture the city of Mobile, and it was incorporated in 1814.
Mobile played an active part in campaigns of General Andrew Jackson, who made this city his headquarters when fighting against the British.
In 1861 Alabama seceded from the Union and was known as the Republic of Alabama. It became a part of the Southern Confederacy and Mobile was one of the most important Confederate ports and did not surrender until the last days of the Civil War.
Mobile's importance as a seaport was recognized as early as 1826 when its river channel was dredged to ten feet. The expanding cotton economy in the South helped the port and surrounding area grow and flourish In the years preceding the Civil War, Mobile was a city of culture and impressive social activities. This was the Grand Antebellum Era for Mobile and the South. Cotton was king, money was spent lavishly, life was easy, and social entertainment prospered. But, by 1862 the hardships of war were beginning to be felt. In 1864, the port of Mobile closed when Admiral Farragut sailed into Mobile Bay and won the Battle of Mobile Bay. This caused Mobile to lose access to the Gulf of Mexico. Reconstruction of the South followed a painful and chaotic "Reconstruction" course. Two years after the War the Order of Myths Mardi Gras Society was formed. More than frivolity was needed however to overcome the financial crisis felt in Mobile and other southern seaports after the fall of King Cotton. The port was improved in 1870 when the ten-foot channel was dredged to thirteen feet, letting larger ships use the harbor.
Today ocean going vessels regularly call at the port.
Mobile gained important during World War I and II. Ships were built and repaired in Mobile's shipyards and the port was very active in shipping supplies to our worldwide fighting forces. Margaret Smith Foster remembers her father (Carl Smith, Sr.) coming to Mobile about 1909 with his dad. Louella's family was originally from Spain but settled in Mobile just about the time of the American Revolution in 1776.
The port's growth and surrounding industrial development makes Mobile a major US seaport and a charming combination of grand social heritage and a large metropolitan city. And seaport cities need shipbuilders, and that's where my Uncle Carl entered the economy of Mobile.
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