This weekend, Av and I spent a little time at the largest National Historic Register Site east of the Mississippi (I didn’t realize it until we got there!) – Historic Blakeley State Park. There is a sign to take one of the exits off I-65 not far from Mobile to get to a Civil War battlefield…so Av and I drove out just to see what was there.
The park attendant gave us a little literature about it – Blakely used to be a thriving town back in the 1820s – bigger than Mobile, even – but today there’s not a single building left.
It’s also where the last major battle of the War was, on April 9, 1865, six hours after Lee surrendered at Appomattox. 26,000 soldiers fought there.
Part of the park is on the Tennsaw River. We walked around for a while by the water, and dragonflies were everywhere!
It’s really, really pretty there. Next time, I think it would be great to hike some of the trails out to the Indian mounds in the park. This site has some information about them.