1870s Mobile

Mobile in the 1870s, looking west on Government Street.

Courtesy of the Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Michael McEachern Collection
1870s Mobile

Mobile Wharf, 1895

Workers load bales of cotton onto a steamboat at a wharf in Mobile in this photo from 1895.

Courtesy of the University of South Alabama Archives, T. E. Amistead Collection
Mobile Wharf, 1895

1880s Mobile

Children play near the fountain in Bienville Square in downtown Mobile in the 1880s.

Courtesy of the University of South Alabama Archives
1880s Mobile

Mobile, 1904

A streetcar travels eastward down Government Street in Mobile toward the river in this 1904 photograph by amateur photographer and railroad mechanic S. Marion Coffin. The towers on the right belong to the now-demolished Mobile County Courthouse, designed by local architect Rudolf Benz and completed in 1889. It was replaced in 1958.

Courtesy of the Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, S. Marion Coffin Collection
Mobile, 1904

Mobile, 1919

Crowds celebrating the end of World War I gather in Mobile's Bienville Square in this 1919 photo by Erik Overbey. The women in the long veils are Red Cross aid workers, who set up stations providing snacks and water for the huge masses of people.

Courtesy of the University of South Alabama Archives, Erik Overbey Collection
Mobile, 1919

1920s Mobile

Mobile's Royal Street in the 1920s, looking east.

the Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Erik Overbey Collection
1920s Mobile

Mobile County Courthouse, ca. 1925

The Mobile County Courthouse and city jail, ca. 1925. It was designed by Mobile architect Rudolf Benz in the Neoclassical style, featuring decorative Roman goddess figures, columns, and domed towers. Hurricanes in 1906 and 1916 caused significant damage to the statuary and clock tower. This courthouse was demolished in the 1950s and replaced with an Art Deco-style building. That was replaced in 2007 with the current building.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Mobile County Courthouse, ca. 1925

King Felix III Float, 1935

The float of King Felix III, monarch of Mobile's Mardi Gras celebration, stops near Bienville Square in this photo from 1935 by the city's greatest photographic documentarian, Erik Overbey.

Courtesy of the Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Erik Overbey Collection
King Felix III Float, 1935

Feed Store Employees and Vehicles, 1932

Delivery drivers for the Curtis Feed Company in Mobile stand next to their vehicles, which are decorated in the checkerboard pattern of the Ralston Purina Company, a nationwide animal feed corporation established in 1894 in St. Louis, Missouri.

Courtesy of the University of South Alabama Archives
Feed Store Employees and Vehicles, 1932

Victory in Europe Celebration, 1945

Employees of the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company celebrate Victory in Europe Day at the company facility in Mobile in 1945. During World War II, the Port of Mobile was a center of military shipbuilding.

Courtesy of the University of South Alabama Archives
Victory in Europe Celebration, 1945

Royal Street, 1950s

The Three Sisters clothing shop encompasses the lower floor of this Beaux-Arts apartment building on Mobile's Royal Street in this photograph from the 1950s.

Courtesy of the Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, History Museum of Mobile Collection
Royal Street, 1950s