The free population in the whole of Mobile County, including the city, consisted of 29,754 citizens, of which 1,195 were free people of color. By 1860 Mobile’s population within the city limits had reached 29,258 people; it was the 27th-largest city in the United States and 4th-largest in what would soon be the Confederate States of America. 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. Alabama’s only lizaro deep-water port, Mobile is located on the Mobile River at the head of Mobile Bay on the north-central Gulf Coast. Springhill Medical Center was founded in 1975 and is Mobile’s only for-profit facility. BayPointe Hospital and Children’s Residential Services is the city’s only psychiatric hospital.
- Battleship Memorial Park is a military park on the shore of Mobile Bay.
- As of the 2020 census, Mobile had a population of 187,041 and 77,772 households, including 45,953 families.
- In 2016, Spire Inc. bought EnergySouth, Inc, the parent company of Mobile Gas and has been provide the service to the surrounding community since then.
- Mobile is served locally by several over-the-air television stations including WKRG 5 (CBS), WALA 10 (Fox), WPMI 15 (Roar), WMPV 21 (religious), WDPM 23 (religious), WEIQ 42 (PBS), and WFNA 55 (The CW).
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- George E. McNally, Mobile’s first Republican mayor since Reconstruction, was the driving force behind the founding of the IDB.
- Other railroads include the CG Railway (CGR), a rail ship service to Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and the Terminal Railway Alabama State Docks (TASD), a switching railroad.
Other railroads include the CG Railway (CGR), a rail ship service to Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and the Terminal Railway Alabama State Docks (TASD), a switching railroad. Mobile is served by four Class I railroads, including the Canadian National Railway (CNR), CSX Transportation (CSX), the Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS), and the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS). A total of 43 FM radio stations and 12 AM radio stations are located around the Mobile area and provide signals sufficiently strong to serve Mobile. Mobile is served locally by several over-the-air television stations including WKRG 5 (CBS), WALA 10 (Fox), WPMI 15 (Roar), WMPV 21 (religious), WDPM 23 (religious), WEIQ 42 (PBS), and WFNA 55 (The CW). Mobile’s alternative newspaper is the Lagniappe which was founded on July 24, 2002. Several post-secondary vocational institutions have a campus in Mobile including Fortis College, Virginia College, ITT Technical Institute and Remington College.
Mobile’s public transportation is the Wave Transit System which features buses with 18 fixed routes and neighborhood service. MCPSS has an enrollment of approximately 52,000 students at 92 schools, employs approximately 7,200 public school employees, and had a budget in 2024–2025 of $843 million. Langan Park, the largest of the parks at 720 acres (291 ha), features lakes, natural spaces, and contains the Mobile Museum of Art, Azalea City Golf Course, Mobile Botanical Gardens and Playhouse in the Park.
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The city initiated construction of numerous new facilities and projects, and the restoration of hundreds of historic downtown buildings and homes. Beginning in the late 1980s, newly elected mayor Mike Dow and the city council began an effort termed the “String of Pearls Initiative” to make Mobile into a competitive city. In 1963, three African-American students brought a case against the Mobile County School Board for being denied admission to Murphy High School.
Christmas Day tornado
The Mobile Medical Museum in the French colonial-style Vincent-Doan House chronicles the history of medicine in the city. The Phoenix Fire Museum in the restored Phoenix Volunteer Fire Company Number 6 building covers fire companies dating to 1838. The History Museum of Mobile showcases centuries of local history in the Old City Hall. Battleship Memorial Park is a military park on the shore of Mobile Bay. The Centre for the Living Arts is an organization that operates the historic Saenger Theatre and Space 301, a contemporary art gallery. The museum was expanded in 2002 to approximately 95,000 square feet (8,826 m2).
- Mobile is home to the Azalea Trail Run, which races through historic midtown and downtown Mobile.
- Fires in 1827 and 1839 destroyed the city’s remaining wooden colonial architecture.
- Several historic cemeteries were established shortly after the colonial era.
- Its local history and genealogy division is located near the Ben May Main Library on Government Street.
- The last quarter of the 19th century was a time of economic depression and municipal insolvency for Mobile.
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The Alabama State Port Authority owns and operates the public terminals at the Port of Mobile. The Wave Transit System provides fixed-route bus and demand-response service in Mobile. The linear park will ultimately span seven miles, from Langan (Municipal) Park to Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Avenue, and include trailheads, sidewalks, and bike lanes. Greyhound Lines provides intercity bus service between Mobile and many locations throughout the United States. Eventually, it was determined that a pocket track and a platform would be constructed for service to resume. The city was served by Amtrak’s Sunset Limited passenger train service until 2005, when the service was suspended due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
According to the 2024 American Community Survey estimates, the average family size was 3.13 people. The annexation shifted racial demographics; Mobile became a majority-minority city with Black or African American residents remaining the largest racial group. As of the 2020 census, Mobile had a population of 187,041 and 77,772 households, including 45,953 families. Mobile is located in the southwestern region of the U.S. state of Alabama.
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It features the World War II era battleship USS Alabama, the World War II era submarine USS Drum, Korean War and Vietnam War Memorials, and historical military equipment. Its local history and genealogy division is located near the Ben May Main Library on Government Street. The Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of South Alabama are open to the public and house primary sources relating to the history of the university, Mobile, and southern Alabama. The National African American Archives and Museum features the history of African-American participation in Mardi Gras, slavery-era artifacts, and portraits and biographies of famous African Americans.
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Mobile has the longest history of celebrating Mardi Gras in the United States, dating to the early 18th century during the French colonial period. It is the largest industrial and transportation complex in the region with more than 70 companies, many of which are aerospace, spread over 1,650 acres (668 ha). Defunct companies that had been founded or based in Mobile included Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company, Delchamps, and Gayfers. Between 1993 and 2003 roughly 13,983 new jobs were created as 87 new companies were founded and 399 existing companies were expanded. The federal district court ordered that the three students be admitted to Murphy for the 1964 school year, leading to the desegregation of Mobile County’s school system. This was nearly a decade after the United States Supreme Court had ruled in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.
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When Mobile was included in the Mississippi Territory in 1813, the population had dwindled to roughly 300 people. By 1766, the town’s population was estimated to be 860 people, although the borders were smaller than during the French colonial period. The Treaty of Paris ceded French territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain, including Mobile. The tribe’s language was the basis for Mobilian Jargon, a Choctaw-derived lingua franca widely used to facilitate trade among the various Gulf Coast peoples. Alabama’s French Creole population celebrated this festival from the first decade of the 18th century. The Mobile metropolitan area, with an estimated 412,000 people, is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the state.