This, along with the news of Johnston's surrender negotiations with Sherman, led General Richard Taylor to seek a meeting with his Union counterpart, Maj. Gen. Edward R. S. Canby.

[citation needed] The capital of La Louisiane was moved in 1720 to Biloxi,[29] leaving Mobile to serve as a regional military and trading center.

The Spanish wished to eliminate any British threat to their Louisiana colony west of the Mississippi River, which they had received from France in the 1763 Treaty of Paris.

[38] Mobile was well situated for trade, as its location tied it to a river system that served as the principal navigational access for most of Alabama and a large part of Mississippi.

[49] On May 25, 1865, the city suffered great loss when some three hundred people died as a result of an explosion at a federal ammunition depot on Beauregard Street.

The explosion left a 30-foot (9 m) deep hole at the depot's location, and sank ships docked on the Mobile River; the resulting fires destroyed the northern portion of the city.

[50] Federal Reconstruction in Mobile began after the Civil War and effectively ended in 1874 when the local Democrats gained control of the city government.

Its Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company (ADDSCO) supported the war effort by producing ships faster than the Axis powers could sink them.

ADDSCO management had long maintained segregated conditions at the shipyards, although the Roosevelt administration had ordered defense contractors to integrate facilities.

The mayor appealed to the governor to call in the National Guard to restore order, but it was weeks before officials allowed African Americans to return to work,[58] keeping them away for their safety.

[citation needed] In the late 1940s, the transition to the postwar economy was hard for the city, as thousands of jobs were lost at the shipyards with the decline in the defense industry.

Following the war, in which many African Americans had served, veterans and their supporters stepped up activism to gain enforcement of their constitutional rights and social justice, especially in the Jim Crow South.

[citation needed] In 1969, the Brookley Air Force Base was closed by the Department of Defense, dealing a severe blow to Mobile's economy.

[68][69] A 2007 study by WeatherBill, Inc. determined that Mobile is the wettest city in the contiguous 48 states, with 66.3 inches (1,680 mm) of average annual rainfall over a 30-year period.

[85] Carnival in Mobile evolved over the course of 300 years from a beginning as a sedate French Catholic tradition into the mainstream multi-week celebration that today bridges a spectrum of cultures.

The 93,000 sq ft (8,640 m2) building, donated to the centre by the Press-Register after its relocation to a new modern facility, underwent a $5.2 million renovation and redesign prior to opening.

It was founded in 1955 as a project of the Junior League of Mobile with the mission to increase cooperation among artistic and cultural organizations in the area and to provide a forum for problems in art, music, theater, and literature.

[130] It offers boat and adventure tours, a small theater, an exhibit hall, meeting facilities, walking trails, and a canoe and kayak landing.

The Church Street Graveyard contains above-ground tombs and monuments spread over 4 acres (2 ha) and was founded in 1819, during the height of yellow fever epidemics.

His "The String of Pearls" initiative, a series of projects designed to stimulate redevelopment of the city's core, is credited with reviving much of downtown Mobile.

[164] This four-year private college offers graduate programs in Business Administration, Education, Liberal Arts, Nursing (MSN), and Theological Studies.

[199] A subsidiary of the Australian company Austal, it expanded its production facility for United States defense and commercial aluminum shipbuilding on Blakeley Island in 2005.

[188][202][203] The Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley is an industrial complex and airport located 3 miles (5 km) south of the central business district of the city.

[213] German technology conglomerate ThyssenKrupp broke ground on a $4.65 billion combined stainless and carbon steel processing facility in Calvert, a few miles north of Mobile, in 2007.

[214][215] The company put both its carbon mill in Calvert and a steel slab-making unit in Rio de Janeiro up for sale in May 2012, citing rising production costs and a worldwide decrease in demand.

[221] In an effort to leverage Mobile's waterways for recreational use, as opposed to simply industrial use, The Three Mile Creek Greenway Trail is being designed and implemented under the instruction of the City Council.

[227] The Winter of 2019 was marked by repeated postponement of votes by the Mobile City Council as it requested more information on how rail traffic from the port would be impacted and where the Amtrak station would be built as community support for the project became more vocal, especially among millennials.

[223] The port is also home to private bulk terminal operators, as well as a number of highly specialized shipbuilding and repair companies with two of the largest floating dry docks on the Gulf Coast.

[251] Fourteen FM radio stations transmit from Mobile: WAVH, WBHY, WBLX, WDLT, WHIL, WKSJ, WKSJ-HD2, WLVM, WMXC, WMXC-HD2, WQUA, WRKH, WRKH-HD2, and WZEW.

Other baseball players to hail from South Alabama include Amos Otis, Tommie Agee, Cleon Jones, Luis Gonzalez, Juan Pierre, Jon Lieber, Adam Lind, and David Freese.