Mobile’s Moon Pie Drop Returns With Mardi Gras Parade, Live Music and Free Museum Access
Mobile is gearing up for one of its biggest New Year’s Eve celebrations yet, with the city’s signature Moon Pie drop, a Mardi Gras parade,…
Dow’s Exit Sets Off a Scramble: The 2005 Race for Mayor of Mobile Takes Shape
With Mayor Mike Dow preparing to confirm he would not seek a fifth term, Mobile's 2005 mayoral field began to form around Ann Bedsole, Sam Jones, John Peavy and Bess…
Is Mobile’s Golden Age Right Now? A Realtor Makes the Case for the Present Tense
Oyster stands on Government Street, the Lyric Theatre, wartime shipyards running around the clock -- all had a claim. But in the third entry of a series on Mobile's golden…
Mother of Mystics: Why Mobile’s True Golden Age Ran From 1880 to 1914
A Point Clear lawyer and self-described jackleg historian argues Mobile's golden age belongs to its mystic societies, dating it precisely from the last great New Year's parade in 1881 to…
Mobile’s Golden Age: A Retired Banker Traces the City’s Rise, Its Missed Container Revolution and Its Long Plateau
Asked to name Mobile's golden age, a 76-year-old retired banker names three, then explains how the city that hosted the inventor of the container ship failed to capitalize on it…
A Mother’s Notes to a Son: An Election, a Wedding, and a Mobile Household in 2004
A collection of e-mails from a Mobile mother to her grown son captures the 2004 election season as it was lived in one Alabama household: gloom, gallows humor, wedding logistics…
Stan the New Man: A 30-Year FBI Veteran Takes a Seat on the Fairhope City Council
Dan Stankoski spent three decades at the FBI supervising violent crime, domestic terrorism and civil rights cases. Now he's on the Fairhope City Council worrying about the next bottleneck on…
Dow Raises Nothing, Peavy Banks $100,000: Mobile’s Campaign Finance Reports Land
Mayor Mike Dow reported zero contributions for all of 2004 and $18.47 in spending. Councilman John Peavy opened a mayoral account that hit six figures in five days, most of…
Salvation or Snake Eyes? Two Mobilians Argue Over the Convention Center’s Return on Investment
A published conversation between two Mobile observers weighs whether the downtown convention center has paid for itself, why Government Plaza depresses them, and whether high-speed ferries would ever carry anyone.
Tennis Anyone? Mobile Councilman’s $3,100 in Taxpayer-Funded Lessons Draws Colleagues’ Rebuke
Councilman Thomas Sullivan says he followed every city procedure in spending $3,100 in public money on tennis lessons and tournament travel for supporters' children. Four of his colleagues say it…
Small Talk in Daphne: The Quiet Newcomer Who Toppled a Political Regime
Daphne's new mayor runs a convenience store, quietly bankrolls a Catholic school, kept every city official he inherited and says his only agenda is controlling the growth barreling toward the…