Category: FRAGMENTS OBSERVED: Life During Mobile’s Progressive Era
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Part Ten, Washington Square Park
The namesake of my most recent series Washington Square Secrets is the neighborhood surrounding Washington Square Park. The area is also prominent in The Malevolent Trilogy and a couple of my short stories. The park has stood since 1850 in what is now called the Oakleigh Garden District, one of Mobile’s not-so-hidden treasures. As seen…
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Part Nine, The 1919 Fire
The city of Mobile has seen its share of disasters. Hurricanes are often the most thought of, but the disaster with one of the highest impacts for Mobilians of the past were fires. We’ve already discussed how fire destroyed two hotels at the current site of the Battle House, but there were plenty of other…
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Part Eight, The Mobile County Courthouse and a Royal Street Revisit
Part Two of this blog series showcased the Battle House hotel at the corner of Royal and St. Francis Streets. Here are a few more photographs of that area before we travel three blocks south. Reminder: the historic photos in this post are used with the permission of Historic Mobile Preservation Society for my “Fragments…
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Part Seven, The Cathedral
If there was one location that united all my historical novels it would be The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The first Catholic Parish in Mobile was founded in 1703 at the site of the previous town settlement—upriver from what is now the city, though it moved south less than a decade later. To say…
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Part Six, Barton Academy
Mobile boasts a lot of firsts, records, and odd (but noteworthy) things for the state of Alabama, the region, and even the country. We are the birthplace of Mardi Gras. The first reinforced concrete skyscraper in Alabama was the Van Antwerp building by George B. Rogers, completed in 1907 at the corner of Royal and…
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