Mobile Docks
8"x 16"200 In Edition

One of the livliest and most colorful areas on the entire Gulf Coast was the Mobile Docks at the mouth of the Alabama-Tombigbee river system. Since colonial days, the port of Mobile had been the major outlet for the state of Alabama's exports, as cotton, lumber, and food commodities crowded the wharves, being transported from riverboats to sailing schooners by scores of mule-drawn carts and wagons. By the turn of the century, expanding port activity began to threaten continued use of traditional means of transportation around the wharves. Following the establishment of the State Docks in the 1920's, steamboats, schooners, and mules gradually began to be replaced by modern ships and cranes, and yet another era of port history drew to a close.

| Back |