Mobile, Alabama

City: Mobile

County: Mobile

State: Alabama

Lat/Long: 33.0500, -112.2667

Founded by France in the eighteenth century as the capital of New France, Mobile became part of the United States in 1813 when President James Madison ceded West Florida from Spain. Although only a small port at the time, it grew quickly as it evolved into the nation's second-largest exporter of cotton behind New Orleans. By the outbreak of the Civil War, Mobile was the largest city in Alabama and the fourth largest in the Confederacy.

Thomason, Michael (2001). Mobile: The New History of Alabama's First City (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001), 65; "Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1860". United States Bureau of the Census. Archived from the original on November 26, 2001. Accessed August 6, 2008, http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20011126145022/http://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0027/tab09.txt; Hallie Farmer, "Mobile," Dictionary of American History Rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976), 4:382.