5 Best Sights in Mobile, Alabama

Operated by the History Museum of Mobile, this new branch, which opened in 2023 in a  newly constructed building in the Africatown historic area of Mobile, tells the story of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship, which sailed into Mobile Bay with 110 enslaved people in 1860, more than 50 years after the Atlantic slave trade had been outlawed. The wreck of the ship itself was discovered in the Mobile River only in 2019, and the museum includes many artifacts that were found and preserved from the wreck. But the exhibit mostly focuses on the lives of the 110 people who survived the sailing (and their descendants), who eventually made their homes as free people in Mobile's Africatown. Because of the size of the facility, advance reservations are required and walk-ins are not allowed.

Experience colonial life at this former French outpost, where Mobile was born. Today, the city's French origins endure in its Creole cuisine and at this historic site. Roughly 150 years after the fort was destroyed, its remains were discovered during construction of the Interstate 10 interchange. A rebuilt portion houses the city's visitor center as well as a museum. Costumed guides conduct tours.

Interactive exhibits and special collections of antique silver, weapons, and more tell the 300-year history of Mobile. The Southern Market/Old City Hall, an 1857 National Historic Landmark Italianate building, houses the museum. A Civil War cannon, miniature houses, and souvenirs from Mobile's oldest mystic societies, the secretive social groups that stage the city’s Mardi Gras celebrations, are on display.

Mobile boasts America’s oldest annual Carnival celebration, which started in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was founded. Festivities, including parades and masquerade balls, begin in November and continue through Fat Tuesday in mid-February. Find the celebration schedule and learn about the city’s Mardi Gras history at the Mobile Carnival Museum at the historic Bernstein-Bush house. Fourteen gallery rooms, a pictorial hallway, theater, den, and gift shop show off royal robes, crowns, scepters, and more.

This antebellum Greek Revival–style mansion, in the heart of historic Oakleigh Garden District, is Mobile's official period house. Costumed guides give tours of the home, built between 1833 and 1838. See fine period furniture, portraits, silver, jewelry, kitchen implements, toys, and more. Tickets include a tour of the garden, the cook's house, and the neighboring Cox–Deasy House, an 1850s cottage furnished with simple 19th-century pieces. All tours start on the hour.