Tag: History
Ask McGehee
Yes, a lynching took place on the southeast corner of Church and St. Emanuel streets (when those two streets used to intersect) in the early morning hours of January...
Ask McGehee
For several years during the 1950s, the reigning Miss America would come to Mobile to open the city’s popular Azalea Trail. Perhaps the most memorable year was 1956,...
Dirty Jobs
First and foremost in my memory of horrible tasks was cleaning out the grease trap. I didn’t get suspicious of this particular responsibility until I was in my early teens...
The Azalea City
To understand Mobile, it’s important to understand the azalea.
Into the Wild: Part II
Read Part I of "Into the Wild" IÂ was determined to spend two weeks in the Alabama River bottom swamp with little more than a bow, arrows and...
Ask McGehee
  ABOVE LEFT Amelia Townsend McTyeire was a Mobile native whose husband, Holland McTyeire, a former minister at St. Francis Street Methodist Church, was a...
Mobile Ironwork
In 1864, in response to protests from the Mobile Daily Register for better illumination Downtown, the City of Mobile erected more than 200 cast-iron lampposts. Despite years...
Ordering the Myths and Facts
Organized into three brief parts to make it accessible even for those who don’t normally like reading histories, Ann Pond’s new books cover the origins of the Carnival...
Ask McGehee
This eight-story building with a penthouse was apparently constructed in 1958. The 1957 city directory indicates that there were three houses on the south side of Government Street just west...
Coastal Clay
It’s under our feet. It’s on the roofs of our houses. It’s the foundation of an ancient mound city in the Delta, and it’s a modern construction material....