Mobile Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau

Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau
Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce

Seasonal Festivals and Fairs (Chronologic)

• 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 street and performing arts festival that began in 2003 – originally biannual, now held in the Spring
• 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.
• 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
• Gulf Coast Antiques, Food, and Wine Festival, December
• Mobile Christmas Parade
• Lighting of the Trees in Bienville Square
• Bellingrath’s Magic Christmas in Lights at Bellingrath Gardens

Mobile & Baldwin Museums

• Museum of Mobile/Exploreum houses a complex of museums in the Old City Hall
  •  The Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center is a science museum and I-Max Theater.
  •  My BodyWorks is a $3 million planned health science exhibit scheduled to open in January 2009 and sponsored by Infirmary Health Systems Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama and the Ernest G. DeBakey Charitable Foundation
  • The Museum of Mobile exhibits the history of the City of Mobile.
• Spirit of Lasalle Mobile Bay Cruises
• Fort Conde Visitors Center
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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.
• The African American Heritage Tour Guidebook
  • Underground Railroad Bicycle Trail
  • Mobile Black History Museum 269 N Broad St.
  • National African-American Archives and Museum: 564 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.
• Mobile Medical Museum: (Eichold-Heustis 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.
  • The first room of the tour, known as the “carriage room”, 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.
  • 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.
  • 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. 
  • 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
  • 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.
• The Azalea Trail: This 27-mile trail exhibits the region’s beautiful flowers. The trails, which date back to the 1930s, are divided into two regions, one downtown and one residential. The pink curbs that once marked the Azalea Trail have faded, but there are still some metal signs that point the way. Plan your trip around February-March. The downtown trail begins at Fort Conde and totals about twelve miles. The West Mobile trail begins at Spring Hill Avenue and I-65 and totals about fifteen miles.
• Mobile Botanical Gardens: Garden Rd. off Museum Dr. Established in 1974, the gardens encompass a 100-acre site of cultivated gardens, woodland trails, and a longleaf pine forest. 

Black Heritage Trail Sites

• Caldwell School , Congress and Broad streets: In 1887 the school opened as the Broad Street Academy. It was the first public high school for African Americans in Mobile. The school was razed in 1947 and the existing building was constructed in its place. Renamed as Broad Street School, it reopened as an elementary school and eventually was called Caldwell School in recognition of the first principal of Broad Street Academy, William Caldwell.
• Finley’s Drug Store, 1388 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.: Site of first drug store in chain founded by James and John Finley.
• Dr. James Franklin house , 355 N. Ann St.: Home of early black physician who worked in Mobile starting in 1919.
• Johnson and Allen Mortuary , 600 Chestnut St.: Black-owned funeral home established in 1894.
• C. First Johnson House , 1358 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.: Home of founder of Mobile’s first black life insurance company, also a minister.
• John LeFlore house , 1504 Chatague St.: Home of pioneering civil rights leader, was bombed in 1967.
• St. Martin de Porres Hospital , 735 South Washington Ave.: Hospital built after World War II by Catholics to serve blacks during segregation. Now Allen Memorial Home, a nursing home.
• Most Pure Heart of Mary Catholic Church , 204 Sengstak St.: The Parish was organized in 1899 as St Anthony’s Mission by Creoles of African descent. The Mission was served by Josephite Priests, Rev. Joseph St. Laurent and Rev. Louis Pastorlli. By 1901, a small school was established. The construction of the present church was completed in 1908. The name was changed to Most Pure Heart of Mary in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mother. The Parish continued as a spiritual beacon to black Mobilians during the Civil Rights Movement of the late Sixties and early Seventies. Most Pure Heart of Mary was the public meeting location for the Neighborhood Organized Workers-NOW.
• Dave Patton house , 1252 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.: Home of noted black builder and developer.
• Union Baptist Church , Bay Bridge Road: Church and cemetery associated with Africatown community founded by survivors of the slave ship Clotilda.
• Roger Williams Drug Store , 600 Dauphin St.: Early black physician opened store on this site in 1911.