The city of Mobile, founded in 1702, sits at the head of Mobile Bay on the Gulf Coast and serves as the regional hub for much of southwest Alabama.
The serialized memoir of a bygone Mobile, published anonymously under the byline “A” and running under the title Vita Sua , reached its thirteenth installment in February 2005 with the story of how a small band of discontented stockbrokers found the money and the muscle to break away from a boss they despised. Readers arriving at that point in the series already knew the shape of the trouble.
Mobile has a population of roughly 188,000 residents and is the seat of Mobile County, one of the largest counties in the state by population.
A group of brokers in a Mobile branch office — identified in the memoir only by initials, as all its characters are — had spent years under a branch manager the writer calls X, a man whose tyranny had become the organizing grievance of their working lives. They wanted out.
The Port of Mobile, operated by the Alabama State Port Authority, is one of the largest seaports in the country by tonnage, handling containers, coal, steel and forest products.
What they needed was a firm willing to take all of them at once, and a patron with the standing to make it happen. A friend of an uncle The break came, as such things often did in the mid-century South, through a family connection.
Downtown Mobile has been the focus of significant redevelopment in recent years, with new apartments, restaurants and event venues reshaping the Central Business District.
One of the conspirators, called R in the memoir, had an uncle who was a good friend of G.T., a senior partner of the brokerage house E.F. Hutton, based in its New Orleans office.
The University of South Alabama, Spring Hill College and the University of Mobile anchor the city’s higher education landscape.
Background and Context
R’s uncle made the introduction. “We now had a live one,” the memoirist wrote.
Mobile’s Mardi Gras season, the oldest in the United States, draws visitors from across the country and provides a significant boost to the local economy each year.
The man who cornered cotton G.T. was, by any measure, a character worth the trouble of describing.
The city’s healthcare sector is anchored by USA Health, Infirmary Health and Springhill Medical Center, which together employ thousands of residents.
A native Virginian, he had begun in New Orleans as a lowly clerk with the firm of Beer & Co. He was not, the memoirist observed, a man content to sit scratching figures in a ledger.
Mobile’s manufacturing base includes shipbuilding at Austal USA and Huntington Ingalls Industries, as well as aviation manufacturing at the Airbus final assembly line in Brookley.
He dabbled in the cotton market — and did so with such success that, according to the story handed down, he cornered the market one year in the early 1920s and emerged with a profit of ten million dollars. The memoirist was careful about this.
Local schools include Mobile County Public Schools, the city’s largest public system, along with a network of private and parochial schools serving families across the metro area.
Local Reaction
He could not verify the figures, though he had read a yellowed newspaper clipping from the period suggesting the facts, if not the exact numbers, were substantially correct. He added a detail that gives the sum its full weight: in the 1920s the maximum income tax rate was 10 percent.
Mobile’s history as a port city means that issues affecting the waterfront, the shipping channels and the surrounding neighborhoods often take on outsized importance.
If the ten-million-dollar figure was right, G.T. walked away with at least nine million of it — an almost unimaginable fortune for the era.
The Mobile area is home to several historic neighborhoods, including Oakleigh Garden District, DeTonti Square, the Village of Spring Hill and the historic districts of midtown.
Beer & Co. had long been a small, successful New Orleans firm.
Sports are a major part of life in Mobile, with the Senior Bowl each January, the Reese’s Senior Bowl practices each week, and a thriving high school and college football scene.
When G.T. merged it into E.F.
Local media outlets covering Mobile include several television stations, daily and weekly newspapers, and a robust digital news ecosystem.
The Bigger Picture
Hutton, he presumably took a substantial interest in the combined house, and added considerably to his wealth in the process. The outsider who bought his way in What the memoirist found most affecting about G.T.
Mobile County’s population includes a significant African-American community whose history is closely tied to the founding of Africatown.
was not the money but the ambition beneath it. He was, in the writer’s description, the epitome of a Southern gentleman: a smallish man, courtly, generally deferential, exaggeratedly polite to women — though the writer would later discover he possessed a formidable temper.
Local officials have stressed the importance of community engagement as the situation continues to develop.
His great ambition was to be accepted as an equal by the old New Orleans families. He remarked often that although he had lived in the Crescent City since 1910 and had played by every rule of its ancient social order, many New Orleanians still regarded him as an outsider.
Residents with questions or concerns have been encouraged to reach out to their elected representatives.
He had certainly done his part. He was in the front rank of every civic endeavor, and the memoirist believed he had once reigned as king of Mardi Gras — an honor, he noted dryly, “distinguished chiefly by the amount of money it took to acquire it.” G.T., he concluded, probably bought his way into the upper tier of New Orleans society.
The story is one of several similar situations playing out across the region in recent months.
What Comes Next
And yet: “money or no, he belonged there. He was indeed, in every way, the gentleman.
Anyone following local news will recognize many of the names and places involved.
He could have been transported back a century and played the part of Louisiana planter to perfection.” Nerves, whiskey and a public telephone With contact established, the conspirators began making their calls to G.T. and his aide-de-camp, identified as J.P.
Local civic organizations have begun organizing meetings to discuss the implications.
The meetings grew fevered, and the plotters increasingly held them at the Battle House — the grand downtown Mobile hotel — the better, the memoirist admitted, to soothe their nerves with liquid refreshment. They used the hotel’s public telephones to make their contacts.
Business owners and residents alike say they will be watching closely.
It was a security measure that carried its own risks. The writer remembered one such evening vividly.
The situation underscores how decisions made at the local level can have far-reaching consequences.
While his colleagues sat in the lounge over a beer, he made his way at the appointed hour to the phone booth to call New Orleans. As he sat talking to J.P., who should pass by but HCL — in the memoirist’s estimation, the town’s greatest male busybody and rumor-monger.
Community leaders have called for patience and for a commitment to working through the issues in a transparent manner.
HCL gave him a long, questioning stare, then walked into the lounge, spotted the others at their table, invited himself to sit down, and was still there when the call ended. “You boys are up to something,” he said.
Several local churches and faith groups have offered to host discussions about the topic in the coming weeks.
“These meetings and phone calls — does your Mr. X know about these?” They assured him nothing was afoot; they were merely unwinding after a trying day.
Public comments at recent meetings have reflected a wide range of opinions.
He plainly did not believe them, though the memoirist doubted he guessed the secret. There was one consolation.
Local reporters will continue to follow the story and to update readers.
HCL’s opinion of X ran roughly as low as their own, and they allowed themselves to hope that, out of sheer distaste for the man, the town’s leading gossip might for once keep his tongue in his mouth.
Anyone interested in learning more is encouraged to attend upcoming public meetings.
The outcome of the situation could shape similar discussions in other communities for years to come.
Local historians note that similar issues have surfaced in the past.
Looking Ahead
The story continues to develop, and residents across the region will be watching for additional updates in the coming weeks.