PREFACE

Im not a historian, and I don’t even play one on TV.

What you are about to read would not qualify as scholarly, academic research, although I put more hours of legwork than I’d like to count into it.

What I am is a storyteller. As a journalist, I have told stories for more than twenty years. Newsrooms trade in the bizarre and the macabre. Invariably, when reporters and editors share the details of some salacious story they are working on, someone will say, “You can’t make this up” because the raw truth of a strange story often is more intriguing than fiction.

With all of those years writing “the first rough draft of history,” as the old saying about newspapers goes, I figured I was well suited to try my hand at actual history. And this is not the dry stuff of names and dates from a history textbook. This is the stuff of “you can’t make this up” scandal that I’ve covered in real time as a journalist. Some of this stuff, in fact, literally did end up on the front pages of newspapers.

The only difference is that it all took place long before I was born.

This is the story of the rogues and rapscallions, the corrupt politicians and vicious murderers, the unspeakable events and unthinkable people who have crawled through history over Mobile, Alabama’s three centuries. I have tried to present the events in as much of a narrative form as possible while remaining faithful to the actual events.

Dialogue comes either from contemporaneous writings or historical accounts that use direct quotes. During high-profile trials in the early twentieth century, Mobile newspapers sometimes hired stenographers and then published precise transcripts, allowing for rich narratives decades later.

As you read Wicked Mobile, consider that wickedness is in the eye of the beholder.

In the test of wills between two men who both wanted to be governor of French Louisiana just after Mobile’s founding, was it Antoine Laumet de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, or Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville who was the rogue? The historical judgment of Mobile is clear: Bienville’s name graces the city’s most prominent park while Cadillac has been relegated to a mere footnote. But the behavior of both men certainly was wicked enough to qualify for the title.

The Indian sneak attack on a settlement near the Tensaw River northeast of Mobile before Alabama even was a U.S. state may seem to qualify as a nobrainer wicked event. The killing that hot summer day was gruesome. But could wickedness not apply also to the U.S. Army, which earlier had launched an attack on a Creek Indian war party? Or for that matter, what about the commander of Fort Mims, whose lackadaisical attitude and incompetence practically invited the attack?

Then there is the young man hanged for the unprovoked murder of his friend, who was sick with tuberculosis. Clearly wicked.

But what if he was wrongly accused?

Or Raymond and Samuel Dyson, a pair of brothers who beat a man to death inside the elegant Battle House Hotel in downtown Mobile to settle “an affair of honor.” Perhaps they committed an evil. Perhaps the evildoer was the victim, who had had an affair with Raymond Dyson’s wife.

Can an entire city be wicked?

Mobile during the Prohibition era erected a wall of massive resistance to the ban on alcohol. A city where Mardi Gras and adult beverages long had been an important part of the social fabric fought against efforts by the state of Alabama and later the federal government to impose temperance.

When the ban did become the law, many of Mobile’s most prominent citizens participated in the lucrative underground business. The events unfolded much like a southern version of the popular HBO program Boardwalk Empire.

Was Mobile wicked or merely fighting the good fight for liberty?

As I said, the answer to these questions often depends on point of view.

This book is not meant to be the first and last word on every misdeed in three hundred years. There are countless others; these are just some of my favorites.

In putting together this book, I was aided enormously by both the subject matter—an old, fascinating city—and some very kind people who know a lot more than I do.

The University of South Alabama Archives has a treasure-trove of historical photographs in its Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library. If it was a big deal in Mobile, chances are there is a file about it at the Local History and Genealogy section of the Mobile Public Library. All of the librarians were helpful.

Speaking of helpful, Scotty Kirkland, the history curator at the Mobile History Museum, put numerous letters and other primary source materials in my hands and made time and space for me to work. Equally helpful was Johnny Biggs, an archive specialist at the Baldwin County Department of Archives and History. He went above and beyond in helping me find materials.

Collétte King, a semiretired archivist at the Mobile County Probate Court, shared some absolute gems with me during my research.

Little has been published about the Battle House honor killing, and that fascinating chapter in Mobile history likely would have remained mostly forgotten if not for the tenacity of Mobile lawyer Matt Green. He has done more research than anyone on the topic and was kind enough to walk me through those events.

Likewise, my old editor at the Mobile Press-Register, Steve Joynt, deserves a great deal of credit for doing the detective work in separating fact from legend in the story of Joe Cain, the godfather of Mobile’s Mardi Gras celebration.

Finally, I would like to thank the editors at The History Press, whose patience I tried as I blew up deadlines. My wife, Kerry; daughter, Mariah; and son, Declan, also showed patience, for the many hours I missed at home. My wife and Mariah, age twelve, also gave up their time to help me proofread the manuscript.

Writers are taught to avoid clichés, but there is one that nonetheless applies: I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.