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Port City History Tours
Walk Through Mobile’s Past – One Story at a Time
Welcome to Port City History Tours, your gateway to Mobile’s rich and complex history. Led by expert guides, our walking tours bring to life the stories of the people, places, and events that shaped this vibrant Southern city. From the grandeur of antebellum society to the dark alleys of crime and scandal, we offer immersive experiences that reveal Mobile’s past like never before.
Featured Tours:
🔹 Octavia’s Mobile Walking Tour
Step into the elegant world of Octavia Walton LeVert, one of Mobile’s most celebrated antebellum figures. Experience the city as she did—through grand mansions, lively social gatherings, and the intellectual salons of the 19th century. Paula Webb brings Octavia’s story to life with historical insights and personal anecdotes from the era.
🔹 Downtown Mobile: Civil War Walking Tour
Walk the streets of Mobile during the turbulent years of the Civil War. As one of the last major Confederate strongholds, Mobile played a crucial role in the war’s final days. This tour highlights Mobile’s importance during in the war, key figures, and the events surrounding the city’s ultimate surrender.
Step back in time and explore the roots of one of the Gulf Coast’s oldest cities on the Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Colonial Mobile walking tour. Guided by acclaimed local historian and author Mike Bunn, this tour uncovers the fascinating—and often overlooked—story of Mobile’s colonial era.
🔹 Magnolia Cemetery’s Confederate Rest Tour
Explore the hallowed grounds of Magnolia Cemetery, where Confederate generals, soldiers, and key figures of the Confederacy rest beneath ancient oak trees. This tour shares the personal stories and military histories of those who shaped Mobile’s wartime legacy.
🔹Joe Cain’s Life in Oakleigh Walking Tour
Explore Joe’s daily life and how he split his time between family, work, civic duties, and recreation, and how he traveled, mostly by railcar, to these locations from his home on what was then the city’s western boundary.
The 90-minute tour includes a stop for refreshments at the home where Joe and Elizabeth lived and raised their children. It also includes stops at each of the locations where family and close friends lived close by, with intriguing and little-known stories about their lives and occupations.
🔹 Downtown Mobile Landmarks: Lost and Found
Discover Mobile’s forgotten history—the grand structures that once defined the city and the historic sites that still stand today. This tour explores the architectural evolution of Mobile, highlighting buildings that were lost to time and those that have been preserved.
🔹Yellow Fever in Mobile: The Ghosts of Magnolia Cemetery
Guests on this tour will have a powerful and chilling view of the Yellow Fever epidemic in Mobile, visiting a few of the elaborate tombs and monuments of Magnolia Cemetery. This tour has plenty of shady places to rest in this tranquil setting.
The 90-minute tour begins at the main entrance on Virginia Street to discuss the impact of Yellow Fever on the lives of Mobilians. Guests will learn about common cures, such as the application of leeches to remove “bad blood,” and how the disease in Mobile affected the national economy. Guests will visit the tombs of a few notable Mobilians who died in the great epidemic of 1839 including early real estate developer, Henry Hitchcock, probably the wealthiest man in the city at the time; Michael Krafft, founder of the Cowbellions, Mobile’s first mystic parading organization; and Benjamin Vincent, Krafft’s brother-in-law, ship captain and slave-trader. Walking through the cemetery, guests will also read heartbreaking epitaphs to the youngest victims, ending at the tomb of Josiah Nott, a Mobile physician who gained national notoriety for discovering the cause of the disease but whose four children all died of Yellow Fever in one week in 1853.
🔹 Downtown Mobile Mardi Gras Tour
Join us for a rowdy, good time of revelry where we explore the story of Mardi Gras in its American birthplace, Mobile, Alabama. From Joe Cain to the parading societies of today, learn the heritage of letting the good times roll.
Meet the Tour Guides
Book Your Journey Through Time
Whether you’re a local looking to uncover hidden history or a visitor wanting to experience Mobile’s past firsthand, Port City History Tours has something for you. Join us for a walk through history—one story at a time.
📍 Tours depart from various downtown locations. Check availability and book online today! Contact us to book a private tour: lastsiege@outlook.com
