Flotte’s Notes on Mobile, Alabama Attractions

Flotte’s Notes on

Mobile Attractions

An Unofficial Encyclopaedia of Mobile & Baldwin Counties

Promoting local history, culture, outdoors, businesses, attractions, food, people, and places

Please submit all comments, additions, and corrections to: admin@flotte2.com

Available through www.flottesnotes.com or www.notesonmobile.com

Mobile Attractions

Seasonal Festivals Museums Gardens Arts Sports Food Mardi Gras

Religion Media Videos Culture Refuges & Parks

"Down in Mobile they're all crazy, because the Gulf Coast is the kingdom of monkeys,

the land of clowns, ghosts and musicians, and

Mobile is sweet lunacy's county seat." – Eugene Walter, The Untidy Pilgrim

Mobile Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau

· Itineraries

· Things To Do

· Tour Planner

· Hotels

Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau

Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce

Current Events – Mobile & Baldwin

· Grossology: The Science of the Human Body at the Exploreum Oct 5th, 2007-Dec 31st, 2007

· M. C. Escher: Rhythm of Illusion at the Mobile Museum of Art Oct 12th, 2007-Jan 6th, 2008

· Mobile Christmas Parade

· Lighting of the Trees in Bienville Square

· Bellingrath’s Magic Christmas in Lights at Bellingrath Gardens until December 31^st

· A Bruce Larsen Christmas at the Mobile Museum of Art Nov 30th, 2007-Jan 6th, 2008

· 2007/2008 GMAC Bowl Jan 6th, 2008

· 7th Annual BankTrust First Light Marathon Jan 13th, 2008

· Rodin: A Magnificent Obsession at the Mobile Museum of Art Jan 25th, 2008-Apr 6th, 2008

· 2008 Senior Bowl Jan 26th, 2008

Mobile & Baldwin Events Calendars

· Lagniappe Arts Listings

· Lagniappe Music Listings

· Press-Register Entertainment Calendar

· City of Mobile Events Calendar

· Mobile Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau Events Calendars

· Mobile Arts Council Calendar

· Alabama Humanities Foundation

Seasonal Festivals and Fairs

· GMAC Bowl

· Senior Bowl

· Mardi Gras

· Friendly Sons of St. Patrick Parade is held on March 17 each year

· Market on the Square is held in Cathedral Square during the spring/summer and fall market season

· Brown Bag in Bienville is a series of mid-day concerts in Bienville Square every Wednesday during spring and fall

· American Cancer Society’s Annual Chili Cook-Off Competition

· Festival of Flowers is held each spring

· Arts Alive! on Dauphin and Conti Streets is a biannual street and performing arts festival that began in 2003 – Spring and Fall

· Kids Days on Bienville Square is held every Thursday during the summer

· The Gulf Coast Ethnic & Heritage Jazz Festival began in 1998. It is held in July in Bienville Square. It is managed by a non-profit corporation.

· Dauphin Street International Beer Festival in August

· BayFest music festival is held every October since 1995

· The Greater Gulf State Fair is held every October. Includes arts and crafts exhibits, concerts, livestock expos, petting zoos, PORCA Rodeo and the Great Gulf State Gun & Knife Show.

· Gulf Coast Antiques, Food, and Wine Festival

· Alabama Pecan Festival is held in Tillman’s Corner in November

· The Mobile International Festival is held in November

· The Rileigh & Raylee Angel Ride is held in November in Fairhope

· Mobile Christmas Parade

· Lighting of the Trees in Bienville Square

· Bellingrath’s Magic Christmas in Lights at Bellingrath Gardens

· Government Street Presbyterian Church’s Music and Fine Arts Program

Mobile & Baldwin Museums

· Museum of Mobile/Exploreum houses a complex of museums in the Old City Hall

o The Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center is a science museum and I-Max Theater.

o The Museum of Mobile exhibits the history of the City of Mobile.

· Spirit of Lasalle Mobile Bay Cruises

· conde76.JPG (23266 bytes) Fort Conde Visitors Center

o The Visitor’s Center is a reconstructed portion of Fort Condé built by the City of Mobile in 1976 in honor of America's Bicentennial

o Fort Louis de la Mobile was a cedar log stockade erected by France in 1711. In 1723 the wood ramparts were replaced with walls of brick and stone. It was then renamed Fort Condé. Under the English in 1763, it was renamed Fort Charlotte for the English queen.

o Fort Charlotte was dismantled in 1820. The site was discovered during freeway excavations in the 1970s, and using original plans archived in France, the city undertook a partial reconstruction of the fort, which was dedicated in 1976.

· Marx House Complex: 307 University Blvd. This complex features preserved historic structures.

· Mobile Black History Museum 269 N Broad St.

· National African-American Archives and Museum: 564 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.

· The Alabama Black Heritage Tour includes an 1875 shanty at 357 Congress Street

· Mobile Medical Museum: 1664 Springhill Ave. In the Vincent-Doan House

· Phoenix Fire Museum 203 S Claiborne St. This 1859 firehouse displays the restored engines, uniforms, and equipment used to battle nineteenth-century blazes.

· Mobile Police Department Museum

· Mobile Zoo & HQH Western World

· The Mobile Carnival Museum, 355 Government St.

o The first room of the tour, known as the "carriage room" for decades now, contains a few exhibits: float replicas, a platform with an undulating floor where one looks out upon a facsimile crowd for a riders’ eye view, an antique flambeaux, a model of the now-jeopardized Mardi Gras park on Royal Street and a mannequin posing as a street vendor. Past that point, the remaining part of the museum takes a much more regal turn. The trains and lavish costumes of the Mardi Gras royalty take up the majority of space left and visitors are well briefed in the opening film about the royalty and its origins among Mobile high society. Everywhere visitors turn, they see reminders of the royal lineage, the litany of familiar names and multiple generations of blueblood Mobilians who passed along birthrights to not only symbolic rule, but also more de facto versions. It brings to mind an old joke about the "problem with Mobile" being that "half the people think the King and Queen of Mardi Gras are real and the other half wish they were." – Kevin Lee, Lagniappe, 7/5/2006

· Battleship Memorial Park houses the USS Alabama, a World War II-era battleship, along with the submarine USS Drum, a B-52 bomber, SR71 Blackbird and other military hardware, both antique and modern. The park features an aircraft pavilion, housing a varied collection of historic planes, including a plane flown by the Tuskegee Airmen. It opened in 1965.

o Stephens Croom was instrumental in the acquisition and establishment of Battleship Memorial Park and served as the first secretary of the USS Alabama Battleship Commission.

· The Mobile Maritime Museum is projected to open in 2009.

o The 90,000-square-foot interactive museum, with hands-on exhibits such as a simulated glass-bottom boat, and others with names such as "Charting the Gulf" and "You Be the Skipper," is expected to cost $30 million.

o In a public-private partnership, the city of Mobile will take the lead in building the museum, with $10.5 million in federal funds already earmarked for the project. The city will work with the museum to secure the other needed construction funding. $6 million in private funds have been raised, of which $1million came from the Malcom McLean family. – PR 6/8/2007

· Several antebellum homes are open to the public, including the Oakleigh Mansion, the Bragg-Mitchell Mansion, and the Condé-Charlotte House

o The Minnie Mitchell Archives are housed in the Oakleigh Historic Complex

· The earliest examples of local architecture that remain intact are two houses estimated to have been built in 1826: the Vincent House on Spring Hill Avenue and the Toulmin House at the University of South Alabama campus.

· The Battle of Mobile Bay Civil War Trail was dedicated in 2007

· Mobile Area Museums Association

· Mobile Civic Center

· Mobile Convention Center

Mobile & Baldwin Gardens

· The Bellingrath Gardens and Home are in Theodore. The gardens' 60 acres were purchased in 1917 as a fishing camp by Walter Bellingrath, President of Mobile's Coca Cola Bottling Plant. Mrs. Bellingrath began developing the gardens with architect George B. Rogers in 1927, and the home was completed in 1935.

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