It turns out that there was never any fighting during the civil war in Mobile therefore the houses were not burnt down which meant that there is quite a large historic district in Mobile so we decided we would do the historic tour. According to the leaflet It covers about 5 miles and should take about an hour to drive so we decided we would walk it. We started off walking towards the fort then around the Church Street East district which is apparently one of the most picturesque districts in the city and contains many of the city’s civic and and commercial buildings such as the market built in 1854 to replace the nearby market, the building also contained Government offices to replace the ones that had been damaged by fire, also as the name suggests there are quite a few churches, but to be honest there are a lot of churches wherever we go so this didn’t feel particularly different. We continued walking through the neighbourhoods and into the Oakleigh Garden district which is where we were yesterday. I think if we lived here I would probably chose this area to live as it has some very nice houses as well as squares with small park areas that give the hole neighbourhood a very village feel. A lot of these houses were built in the 1850s and the Americans call them Queen Ann or Classical Revival style which is a little Georgian but with bigger columns! From here we went to the Old Dauphin Highway which is Mobiles largest historic district containing approximately 2000 buildings. It was started in the 1820s and continued to develop through the 19th and early 20th centuries. At one time streetcars traveled along the main streets – Government Street and Springhill Avenue but unfortunately no more. This joins with Lower Dauphin district which is the centre of Mobiles business district and has one of the towns oldest streets. The name dates from the City’s French colonial past; the heir to the French throne was called “Dauphin” The street remained largely undeveloped during colonial times but its importance increased once Mobile became an American city in 1813. In the late 1830s there were a number of fires that destroyed large parts of Mobile so in 1839 all structures along Dauphin and the commercial districts were required to be built of brick, because of this many of the buildings remain. The final area we visited was Detonti Square which is the oldest surviving residential neighbourhood in Mobile. Named after a Henri de Tonti, an early French explorer, many of the houses date from the 1850’s during the Golden Era of cotton. Known as “white gold” it allowed homeowners to show off their wealth in the elaborate Italianate style popular at the time. We had noticed as we were walking around that each of the Historic buildings had a MHDC marker which is awarded for restoring or maintaining the architectural past of Mobile. It denotes buildings that contribute to the City’s character. Apparently houses must be over 75 years old and retain its original architecture and character. Each of the markers have a name and a date which we thought meant when it was built and who built it but it turns out that the date is when it was built but the name is the current owner which to be honest feels a bit odd! We walked back to the commercial area as we needed something to eat by this time, then as the storm clouds gathered again we went back to the hotel for a much needed shower and relax!
