Battle of Mobile Bay, Spanish Fort

[MichaelB]

As you can see from the story below, the trenches that still exist may soon be a thing of the past. I have some great artifacts from this area on my web page. I hope something can be worked out:

http://www.al.com/news/press-registe...660.xml&coll=3

[AnOldPro]

Man... that article really hit me right between the eyes!!!

My last hunt at Spanish Fort was many years ago now but it was right across the street from the elementary school. My hunting buddy, Don Painter, and I chose that site because Jim Mitchell told us that it was probably the most hunted site on the entire Mobile battlefield. We were using Garrett ADS Deepseekers with 14" coils and wanted to see just how many artifacts had been missed by all the other hunters.

We parked just off the road and started to hunt right there in front of our truck. We spent the entire day within 50 yards of the truck and both of us found over 200 CW artifacts apiece! God grant more such "worked-out" areas to hunt before I die!

In addition to our prolific minnie ball finds of MANY types, Don got a Selma Arsenal 24 lb. Polygonal Cavity Ball intact within sight of the truck and then I found one that was a "softburst" about 3' deep. I recovered all 12 polygonal shaped pieces including the piece with the fuse hole in it from a hole about 4' wide by 3' deep. The shell had just enough powder to blow apart but not enough to make the pieces travel more than a few inches from each other. When glued back together with two of the pieces left unglued so they could be removed for inspection of the inside it made a fantastic display artifact!

How sad to hear that the site is about to be "crushed under the heel of a developer! How could the people of Mobile for all these years turn a blind eye to the obvious need to preserve this site from destruction?

Thanks much for posting the article. My hunts at Spanish Fort and Blakeley (before it became a park) were some of the absolute best of the hundreds I have had on CW sites in 22 states!

Dorian Cook