Government Street is the name given to U.S. Route 90 and portions of U.S. Route 98 within the city limits of Mobile, Alabama. It is known as Government Street east of Pinehill Drive and as Government Boulevard west of Pinehill Drive. It is the most important road on Mobile's far south side and is the only nominally east–west road on Mobile's south side to come into the city from outside the western city limits and reach the downtown business district. The only other two east–west thoroughfares in the city to do so are Moffett Road/Springhill Avenue and Old Shell Road. Government is a two-lane highway throughout the city limits, from Water Street to the western city limits. It is the only thoroughfare in Mobile to have intersections with both Interstate 10 and Interstate 65 within the city limits.
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Government Street begins at Water Street in downtown Mobile. It expands after crossing Royal Street, where additional lanes join from U.S. Route 98 via the Bankhead Tunnel. U.S. Route 98 leaves the route at Broad Street, with the remainder of Government continuing as U.S. Highway 90. It continues onward for approximately 3.6 miles (5.8 km) to Pinehill Drive, where it becomes Government Boulevard. It then continues for approximately 10 miles (16 km) until it ends at the southwestern-most limits of the city, in Theodore. This area, along with the Tillmans Corner business district, was annexed into the city in September 2008.
The street was laid out and named after the close of Mobile's colonial era, following the demolition of the obsolete Fort Conde. In the early 1820s the marshlands between the Mobile River and Royal Street were filled in with the bricks and other material from the demolished fort. Government Street was run westward from the old esplanade that had been situated beside the river and fort.[1] It has traditionally been a street where Mobile's government-related functions were concentrated. Barton Academy, Old City Hall, the Mobile County License Commissioner Offices, Mobile Government Plaza, the Mobile Public Library, Mobile Bar Association, and Social Security Administration all continue to lie along Government Street.[2] Government has a reputation as "mansion row" in the city, even though the biggest and grandest of the 19th century mansions once lining Government Street were demolished as late as the 1970s. The area east of Houston Street still has many 19th to early 20th century mansions that date back to the time when Government was the most prestigious address that one could have in Mobile.[1] The oldest residential structure remaining on Government Street is the Creole cottage known as the Auld-Price-Pillans home (1830) at 1407, with the oldest mansion the Roberts-Taylor-Isbell House (1837 & 1854) at 910, former home of Mayor R.V. Taylor. Members of the Astor, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt families once had Government Street addresses in the days when Mobile was the winter home of the nation's rich and powerful, typically the season from Thanksgiving to Lent.[1]