HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOBILE!

Dec 31st, 2001

By RENE BUSBY
Staff Reporter
Mobile Register
(from article on Dec 9)

Pull out the party hats and horns and get ready to party -- for a whole year.


Mobile's 300th birthday party begins next month and lasts through the end of 2002.

The year-long tricentennial celebration will be packed with special events, including everything from a re-enactment of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville's landing in Mobile to a reunion of descendants of Mobile's founding fathers and a water-and-land battle recreating the Battle of Mobile Bay.

Events that already take place annually, such as the Senior Bowl and Mardi Gras, will honor the 300th birthday by focusing on the tricentennial.

Members of the board of Mobile Tricentennial Inc. began organizing and planning the yearlong celebration in 1994.

"We said we always wanted to consider a general statement that the committee made way back in the very beginning when we became an active committee," said Ann Bedsole, president of Mobile Tricentennial Inc.

"That statement was we want Mobile to be a place that values all of its citizens. So, that meant we wanted things with general appeal. That would sort of answer for us the questions who we are, where did we come from, why are we here and where are we going."

The birthday celebration begins in January with a documentary titled, "We Are Mobile: The Spirit of a Place and Its People," produced by Mobilian Robin De Laney, director of marketing and creative services for WKRG-TV5.

The documentary contains interviews with the "movers and shakers of the last century," said Carol Hunter, a spokeswoman for Mobile Tricentennial.

"We're really lucky in this city to have the archives we do," Hunter said. "Many cities can't recreate their history."

That same week, a re-enactment of the landing of Bienville will take place at the Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff on the Mobile River.

Two months later at the Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff there will be a reunion of descendants of Bienville and his brother, Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville, another founder of Mobile, and other settlers who first set foot three centuries ago on land that is now Alabama.

In May, a special re-enactment of the Battle of Mobile Bay will include a water battle and a land battle. Schooners will troll the waters along with a barge that will portray the CSS Tennessee, a Confederate ironclad.

"This is huge," said Hunter, "because for the first time we will have encampments at both Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines."

As the nation celebrates its birthday next year, Mobile will commemorate its birthday with a parade of tall ships from around the world that will sail into Mobile Bay and be on display for public tours.
"We had hoped to get between six and 12," Hunter said. "Right now we have four, which many people say is a good start."

Mobile's youth will get in on the birthday party in August, when the city hosts the "Young Mobile Festival: Teddy Bear Picnic and Toy Boat Regatta," which will include a vintage toy show at Oakleigh and a picnic in Langan Municipal Park.

The yearlong celebration will wrap up with "Homecoming at the Homeport" in November.

The finale will take place downtown. Organizers are calling the weekend "Homecoming at the Homeport" because of its catchy alliteration. The location is not to be confused with the former U.S. Naval Station Mobile, which had been called the Mobile home port.

Bedsole said the tricentennial group is working on other events in conjunction with the birthday, but those events do not have commitments.

"I don't want to talk about them," she said, "because we are not sure they are going to work out."

Organizers hope to raise $6 million for the tricentennial.

Hunter said the money will not only help with celebrations during the year, but with long-range projects to enhance Mobile, such as ReVive Mobile, designed to help communities jump-start revitalization efforts as part of the city's 300th birthday celebration.

Mobile Tricentennial, which consists of two paid staff members, six officers and 16 board members, has raised more than $2.5 million through donations from the City of Mobile, Mobile County and private individuals, she said. Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, Mobile Mayor Mike Dow and Mobile County Commissioner Sam Jones are the three honorary chairmen.

While organizers have lined up a year's worth of events marking the celebration, they hope the tricentennial will have a long-lasting impact on the city.

"The celebration is just what we do next year," said Hunter. "We want to leave a real legacy and when 2002 is over, we want that to be the beginning of making Mobile an even greater city than it is."