Mobile: America's Original Mardi Gras City
Mobile held its first Mardi Gras celebration in 1703, more than fifteen years before New Orleans was even founded. French colonists established the tradition, and it has continued without interruption except during wartime. The city's Mardi Gras season runs from late January through Fat Tuesday with parades, masked balls, and the mystic societies that predate their New Orleans counterparts.
The port of Mobile sits at the head of Mobile Bay on the Gulf Coast. It ranks among the top twelve ports in the United States by tonnage and handles coal, steel, lumber, and containers. Austal USA operates a shipyard on the Mobile River where the company builds littoral combat ships and expeditionary fast transports for the U.S. Navy. Airbus opened a final assembly line at the Brookley Aeroplex in 2015, assembling A320 family aircraft for the American market.
Battleship Memorial Park, south of downtown, preserves the USS Alabama, a World War II-era battleship that saw action in the Pacific. The USS Drum, a submarine, sits alongside. Mobile's population is around 183,000, making it the fourth-largest city in the state. Bellingrath Gardens and Home, about twenty miles south, draws visitors to its 65-acre estate and seasonal flower displays.
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Mobile held its first Mardi Gras celebration in 1703, more than fifteen years before New Orleans was even founded. French colonists established the tradition, and it has continued without interruption except during wartime. The city's Mardi Gras season runs from late January through Fat Tuesday with parades, masked balls, and the mystic societies that predate their New Orleans counterparts.
The port of Mobile sits at the head of Mobile Bay on the Gulf Coast. It ranks among the top twelve ports in the United States by tonnage and handles coal, steel, lumber, and containers. Austal USA operates a shipyard on the Mobile River where the company builds littoral combat ships and expeditionary fast transports for the U.S. Navy. Airbus opened a final assembly line at the Brookley Aeroplex in 2015, assembling A320 family aircraft for the American market.
Battleship Memorial Park, south of downtown, preserves the USS Alabama, a World War II-era battleship that saw action in the Pacific. The USS Drum, a submarine, sits alongside. Mobile's population is around 183,000, making it the fourth-largest city in the state. Bellingrath Gardens and Home, about twenty miles south, draws visitors to its 65-acre estate and seasonal flower displays.
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