inhabitants as the fire destroyed their property. The year 1839 is the blackest in Mobile's history, and Percy Walker's picture of that dire summer, before the Alabama Legislature, deserves to rank high among American orations.
The depression lasted several years, and before complete recovery it became complicated with a commercial problem. Railroads had been invented, and Mobile with all other ports had to face new problems. M. J. D. Baldwin preached the necessity of building a Mobile road to the growing West, but long he was laughed at as a Cassandra. He persevered, and in 1848 the Mobile & Ohio Railroad was begun towards Cairo, Illinois. It was a magnificent conception, and right fitting it was that Baldwin should have driven the last spike of its realization. The result was that by 1860 the cotton receipts had grown to eight hundred thousand bales, and the next year were about a million.
In 1852 was a disastrous flood, and next year the worst epidemic of her history; but the results were only temporary. New banks, like the Southern and Mechanics (afterwards the Mobile Savings), were organized, the Battle House, Custom-House and other fine
