27 things about Mobile that you didn't know

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Did you know that Mobile, AL is home to the tallest building on the Gulf Coast between Houston and South Florida? If not, here's 27 other things you probably didn't already know about this deep south seaport city.

  1. The RSA-BankTrust Building was the tallest building in Mobile from 1965 until 2007.

  2. At 745 feet in height, the RSA Battle House Tower is the tallest building in Alabama and on the Gulf Coast outside of Houston.

  3. In 2007, a spire was added to the Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel, increasing its architectural height from 277 feet to 374 feet.

  4. The former Gulf Mobile & Ohio railroad terminal is one of the South’s finest examples of early 20th century blending of Mission Revival and Gothic architecture with limestone gargoyles and terracotta masonry.

  5. Designed by Chicago-based architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White and completed in 1929, the Art Deco Regions Bank Building is crowned with a distinctive copper-plated pryamidal roof structure.

  6. Donated to the City of Mobile as a public park in 1824, Bienville Square was the premier gathering space for residents prior to the 1940s. In fact, in 1905, Theodore Roosevelt spoke in the about the importance of the Panama Canal to the port of Mobile.

  7. Dauphin Street was named for the son of Louis XIV when platted in the early 18th century. As the city’s principal commercial corridor, the slang phrase “like walkin’ down Dauphin Street” came to denote anything of exceptional quality.

  8. A full block of buildings were demolished in 1979 to create a public park dominated by the facade of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception called Cathedral Square.

  9. It took 49 years to build Mobile’s Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Designed in the form of a Roman basilica in 1833, construction began in 1835. Due to a shortage of funds, the Cathedral’s twin towers weren’t completed until 1884.