| Bienville Square | |
|---|---|
 Bienville Square from Dauphin Street in 2008. | |
 | |
| Type | Public park |
| Location | Mobile, Alabama |
| Area | 1 city block |
| Created | 1850 |
| Operated by | The City of Mobile |
| Open | All year |
Bienville Square is a historic city park in the center of downtown Mobile, Alabama. Bienville Square was named for Mobile's founder, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville. [1] It takes up the entire block bordered by the streets of Dauphin, Saint Joseph, Saint Francis, and North Conception.
Bienville Square had its beginnings as a public park in 1824 when the United States Congress passed an act that transferred a large plot of land to the city of Mobile and specified that the property be forever used as a city park. This plot had been the site of the old Spanish Hospital on the southwestern corner of the block, at the corner of Dauphin Street and North Conception Street. [1] The city began buying the other lots in the block in 1834 and, by 1849, held title to the entire block.
The May 30, 1869 edition of the Mobile Register gives a short history of the square:
For thirty years of more Bienville Square-- the public square as it was called for two thirds of that time-has had an existence, but in its neglected state, a receptacle of trash and a lair for vagabonds, it was an absolute nuisance until it was put into its present condition through the energy, good taste and liberal judgement of Lewis T. Woodruff. Bienville Square as it is, is his creation, and he never ceased to feel an interest in its being properly cared for.
The square was a primary gathering place for residents of the city from the 1850s to the 1940s. By the late 1960s, however, Bienville Square had become rundown as the city lost population to the suburbs in the postwar housing developments. [2] With the revival of downtown starting in the 1980s, the city renewed the square and its popularity increased.
In September of 2020, Hurricane Sally badly damaged a number of the large trees in the square, creating open sky, where a green, shady canopy once was. [3]
Theodore Roosevelt spoke in the square in 1905 about the importance of the Panama Canal to the port of Mobile. [4] It was the site of many mass meetings by shipyard workers from Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company during World War II as the company experienced labor disputes. [5]
In the 1850s walkways, a cast-iron fence (since removed), and benches were added here. Live oak trees were planted to provide shade. In the 1890s, the large cast iron fountain with an acanthus leaf motif was added to the center of the square. A new bandstand with public restrooms was donated to the park in 1941 by the Sears and Roebuck Company to replace one from the Victorian era. [4]
In 1977 the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, in cooperation with the Amoco Foundation, gave a bronze plaque to the City of Mobile to commemorate the life of Cudjo Lewis, the last survivor of Clotilda , the last known slave ship, and a founding resident of Africatown in north Mobile. The plaque was installed in Bienville Square. [6]
A plaque is installed near the northwest corner of the park honoring the city’s founder D’Iberville, the first governor of Louisiana and elder brother to Bienville.
An historic marker at the Square’s Northwest corner commemorates the Salvation Army.
A large granite cross near the southern edge of the park honors Bienville, the younger of the two Le Moyne brothers who settled Mobile, and the second governor of Louisiana.
The Africatown Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. (In January 2018, Ben Raines of al.com reported that he may have found the wreckage of Clotilda, which was burned and sunk in the river north of Mobile. Excavation and many studies will be required to confirm that.) [7]
The square is used for many of the city's cultural functions:
Mobile is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobile's population increased to 204,689 residents. It is now the second-most-populous city in Alabama, after Huntsville.
Mobile Bay is a shallow inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in the United States. Its mouth is formed by the Fort Morgan Peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. The Mobile River and Tensaw River empty into the northern end of the bay, making it an estuary. Several smaller rivers also empty into the bay: Dog River, Deer River, and Fowl River on the western side of the bay, and Fish River on the eastern side. Mobile Bay is the fourth largest estuary in the United States with a discharge of 62,000 cubic feet (1,800 m3) of water per second. Annually, and often several times during the summer months, the fish and crustaceans will swarm the shallow coastline and shore of the bay. This event, appropriately named a jubilee, draws a large crowd because of the abundance of fresh, easily caught seafood.
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, also known as Sieur de Bienville, was a French-Canadian colonial administrator in New France. Born in Montreal, he was an early governor of French Louisiana, appointed four separate times during 1701–1743. He was the younger brother of explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville.
The Bankhead Tunnel, formally the John H. Bankhead Tunnel, is a road tunnel in Mobile, Alabama that carries Government Street under the Mobile River from Blakeley Island to the downtown Mobile business district. It is named for John H. Bankhead, an Alabama politician and U.S. Senator who was also the grandfather of actress Tallulah Bankhead. It, like the larger George Wallace Tunnel a few blocks downriver from it, was constructed in Mobile at the shipyards of the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company (ADDSCO), from 1938-1940. The eastern end of the Bankhead Tunnel features a large "flood door" that can be closed to prevent water from Mobile Bay flooding the tunnel during surges from hurricanes or tropical storms. It was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on January 25, 1977.
Mobile, Alabama during the American Civil War was an important port city on the Gulf of Mexico for the Confederate States of America. Mobile fell to the Union Army late in the war following successful attacks on the defenses of Mobile Bay by the Union Navy.
The Old Mobile Site was the location of the French settlement La Mobile and the associated Fort Louis de La Louisiane, in the French colony of New France in North America, from 1702 until 1712. The site is located in Le Moyne, Alabama, on the Mobile River in the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. The settlement served as the capital of French Louisiana from 1702 until 1711, when the capital was relocated to the site of present-day Mobile, Alabama. The settlement was founded and originally governed by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville. Upon the death of d'Iberville, the settlement was governed by his younger brother, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. The site can be considered a French counterpart to the English colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. The settlement site and fort were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 6, 1976. The Old Mobile Site was determined eligible for designation as a National Historic Landmark on January 3, 2001.
Fort Charlotte, Mobile is a partially-reconstructed 18th-century fort in Mobile, Alabama.
Brookley Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base located in Mobile, Alabama. After it closed in 1969, it became what is now known as the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley.
Mobile was founded as the capital of colonial French Louisiana in 1702 and remained a part of New France for over 60 years. During 1720, when France warred with Spain, Mobile was on the battlefront, so the capital moved west to Biloxi. In 1763, Britain took control of the colony following their victory in the Seven Years' War. During the American Revolutionary War, the Spanish captured Mobile and retained it by the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis, born Oluale Kossola, and also known as Cudjo Lewis, was the third to last adult survivor of the Atlantic slave trade between Africa and the United States. Together with 115 other African captives, he was brought to the United States on board the ship Clotilda in 1860. The captives were landed in backwaters of the Mobile River near Mobile, Alabama, and hidden from authorities. The ship was scuttled to evade discovery, and remained undiscovered until May 2019.
The National African American Archives and Museum, formerly known as the Davis Avenue Branch of Mobile Public Library, is an archive and history museum located in Mobile, Alabama. It serves as a repository for documents, records, photographs, books, African carvings, furniture, and special collections that relate to the African-American experience in the United States. Some of the collection was developed when the building was part of the Mobile Public Library as the Davis Avenue Branch.
The Mobile Public Library is a public library system primarily serving Mobile County, Alabama. The system is a department of the city of Mobile and receives funding from Mobile County and the city of Saraland.
The schooner Clotilda was the last known U.S. slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States, arriving at Mobile Bay, in autumn 1859 or on July 9, 1860, with 110 African men, women, and children. The ship was a two-masted schooner, 86 feet (26 m) long with a beam of 23 ft (7.0 m).
Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Plateau, is a historic community located three miles (5 km) north of downtown Mobile, Alabama. It was formed by a group of 32 West Africans, who in 1860 were bought and transported against their will in the last known illegal shipment of slaves to the United States. The Atlantic slave trade had been banned since 1808, but 110 slaves held by the Kingdom of Dahomey were smuggled into Mobile on the Clotilda, which was burned and scuttled to try to conceal its illicit cargo. More than 30 of these people, believed to be ethnic Yoruba, Ewe, and Fon, founded and created their own community in what became Africatown. They retained their West African customs and language into the 1950s, while their children and some elders also learned English. Cudjo Kazoola Lewis, a founder of Africatown, lived until 1935 and was long thought to be the last survivor of the slaves from the Clotilda living in Africatown.
The Mobile–Tensaw River Delta is the largest river delta and wetland in Alabama. It encompasses approximately 260,000 acres (110,000 ha) in a 40-by-10-mile area and is the second largest delta in the contiguous United States. This large river delta is approximately 45 miles long and averages 8 miles wide, being 16 miles wide at its widest point. It covers approximately 300 square miles. Of its 260,000 acres, 20,000 acres consist of open water, 10,000 acres of marsh, 70,000 acres of swamp; and more than 85,000 acres of bottomland forest. It drains an area of about 44,000 sq miles, which includes 64% of Alabama and small portions of Georgia and Mississippi.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Mobile, Alabama.
The Protestant Children's Home, also known as the Protestant Orphans' Asylum, is a historic orphanage building in Mobile, Alabama, United States. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 18, 1973.
In 2015 the building was leased to the Infant Mystics society which began using it as a meeting lodge, renaming the place Cotton Hall.
The Historic Roman Catholic Properties in Mobile Multiple Property Submission is a multiple property submission of Roman Catholic properties in Mobile, Alabama, that were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places. The submission covers cemetery, church, convent and other religious properties that are historically or architecturally significant.
Timothy Meaher was the son of an Irish immigrant father and an Anglo-Irish American mother. He was raised in rural Whitefield, Maine. In his 20s, he moved to Mobile, Alabama where he became a wealthy human trafficker, businessman and landowner. He built and owned the slave-ship Clotilda and was responsible for illegally smuggling the last enslaved Africans into the United States in 1860.
Africatown Heritage House is a community building in Mobile, Alabama that houses "Clotilda: The Exhibition" about the survivors and descendants of slaves transported on the Clotilda, the United States' last known slave ship, many of whom established Africatown.
