Bayou La Batre, AL

Bayou La Batre is a Mobile County city on the southern Alabama coast, where the bayou reaches Portersville Bay and Mississippi Sound. The 2020 census counted 2,204 residents. State Highway 188 runs through town, and Mobile County Public Schools serve Booth Elementary, Alba Middle, and Alma Bryant High School. The working waterfront is still the main local reference point: fishing boats, shrimp boats, seafood processing, and shipbuilding occupy the harbor and connect the city to the Gulf's commercial routes.

ATTRCarlton Ward Jr. / CC BY-SA 4.0

The settlement began in 1786, when French settler Joseph Bousage received a Spanish land grant along the bayou. Its name grew from the French battery installed nearby. After a resort era and a destructive 1906 hurricane, the local economy turned toward seafood by the mid-1920s. Bayou La Batre incorporated in 1955, and Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian fishing families added another layer to the port's story. The annual Blessing of the Fleet and seafood festivals keep that harbor history tied to the present.