Bayou La Batre (/ˌbaɪ.oʊ lə ˈbætri/ or local /ˌbaɪlə ˈbætri/) is a town in Mobile County, Alabama, United States. It is included in the Mobile metropolitan statistical area. At the 2000 census, the population was 2,313. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2,558.
Bayou La Batre is a fishing village with a seafood-processing harbor for fishing boats and shrimp boats. The local Chamber of Commerce has described the city as the "Seafood Capital of Alabama" for packaging seafood from hundreds of fishing boats.
Bayou La Batre was the first permanent settlement on the south Mobile County mainland and was founded in 1786, when French-born Joseph Bouzage (Bosarge) [1733-1795] was awarded a 1,259-acre (509 ha) Spanish land grant on the West Bank of the bayou (see history below). The modern City of Bayou La Batre was incorporated in 1955.
Bayou La Batre was featured in the 1994 film Forrest Gump and the book upon which it is based. In April 2005, Disney Studios launched a secretly built pirate ship, the Black Pearl, out of Bayou La Batre for filming sequels to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Bayou La Batre's seafood industry also serves as a centerpiece for the History channel's reality documentary series Big Shrimpin'.
Alabama is a southern state in the United States.
Alabama may also refer to:
Alabama was a Canadian band of the early 1970s. They had two songs that reached the top 100 in the RPM Magazine chart. "Song of Love" reached #26 in June 1973, and "Highway Driving" reached #42 in August. Band members were Buster Fykes, Hector McLean, Rick Knight, and Len Sembaluk.
Alabama is a Gloucester fishing schooner that was built in 1926 and served as the pilot boat for Mobile, Alabama. The Alabama's home port is Vineyard Haven Harbor, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The Alabama is owned by The Black Dog Tall Ships, along with the Shenandoah, and offers cruises of Nantucket Sound.
The schooner Alabama was one of the last vessels built from the design of one of the most notable designers of Gloucester Fishing Schooners, Thomas F. McManus. Commissioned by the Mobile Bar Pilot Association of Mobile, Alabama, the vessel was built in Pensacola, Florida, launched in 1926, and originally called Alabamian until her predecessor the Bar Pilot Association's original Alabama was retired. Though the hull bore strong resemblance of McMannus' famous Gloucester fishing schooner designs, it served as a pilot boat stationed on the Mobile Bar until 1966.
In 1967 the schooner was bought by Captain Robert S. Douglas, master and designer of the Shenandoah, and moved to Vineyard Haven. There she sat on a mooring with minimal necessary upkeep until 1994. In the early nineties with a dwindling market for windjammer cruises which leave out most modern amenities kids became the new direction for the Coastwise Packet Company - the original name for what is now also The Black Dog Tall Ships. Because of the success of these "Kids Cruises" on board the Shenandoah, Alabama was to be rebuilt by the Five Corners Shipbuilding Company headed by Gary Maynard a former First Mate that sailed on the Shenandoah. Most of the work was done in Vineyard Haven with the vessel afloat on her mooring using Captain Douglas' own power tools and shop space. Any other work was done in Fairhaven, Massachusetts at D.N. Kelly's Shipyard.