Mobile Bay
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Mobile Bay is an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, lying within the state of Alabama in the United States. Its mouth is formed by a peninsula on the eastern side and Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side. The Mobile River and Tensaw River empty into the northern end of the bay, making it an estuary. Dog River, Deer River, and East Fowl River empty into the western side of the bay, and Fish River is across the bay on the eastern shore.
Mobile Bay narrows from 20-miles (32-km) wide, near the mouth, to about 7-miles wide (11 km) at the northern end, nearly 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The deepest areas of the bay are located within the shipping channel, sometimes in excess of 75 feet deep, but the average depth of the bay is only 12 feet.
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[edit] Shoreline towns
The city of Mobile, Alabama, is situated at the head of the bay on the western shore. On the eastern shore of the bay are found several small communities, including Spanish Fort, Daphne, Fairhope, Point Clear, and Bon Secour. The town of Gulf Shores lies along the eastern peninsula at the Gulf of Mexico.
On warm summer nights, the residents of the eastern and western shores sometimes enjoy the fruits of a mysterious natural phenomenon called a jubilee, when fish and crabs swarm toward shore and can be easily harvested by people wading in the shallows.
[edit] History
The area around Mobile Bay was settled by some Choctaw tribes, [1] before the European explorers arrived.
By the mid-16th century, the Spanish conquistadors, such as Hernando de Soto,[1] began mapping the area. In 1559, the government of New Spain (Mexico) send over 1400 colonists from Veracruz to establish a settlement in the area, called Ochuse bay; however, some sources believe the settlement was further east, at Pensacola Bay.
Due to hurricane damage, famine, and disputes with the native inhabitants, the Spanish settlements were abandoned in 1561, and the survivors left for Cuba or Veracruz.
An 1861 map (at right), from the American Civil War, has towns labeled for Mobile, Toulminville, Whistler, Kushla, Belle Air (along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad), and on the eastern shore, Stockton, Alabama City, and Williamsburg. On August 5, 1864, during the American Civil War, Admiral David Farragut led a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and sealed one of the last major Southern ports of the bay in the Battle of Mobile Bay.
On September 13, 1979, Hurricane Frederic entered the bay with winds reaching 145 mph, destroying the bridge to Dauphin Island.
On August 28-29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina pushed a massive storm surge into Mobile Bay, measuring 16-ft (5-m) high at Bayou La Batre (Alabama), with higher waves on top, and 12-ft high at Mobile, at the far northern end of Mobile Bay. Thousands of boats, boardwalks, and beach houses were damaged by waves exceeding 22-ft (6-m) high, and the Battleship USS Alabama was pushed off its mooring, listing to port (tilted to the left). Downtown Mobile was flooded several feet, and the south-end towns of Bayou La Batre and Bon Secour were severely damaged, with ships and dozens of shrimp boats floated onto the land.
[edit] See also
- Gulf Islands National Seashore - offshore islands, includes nearby states.
- Hurricane Camille - area hurricane of 1969.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b "Choctaw Indian Tribe" (subtribes history), AccessGenealogy.com, 2006, webpage: AGchoctaw: states Choctaw inhabited lower Tombigbee River, covered southeast Louisiana to Florida panhandle.
[edit] References
