Mardi Gras Museum

By Jere Hough Meteorologist / Feature Reporter

Mobile's Mardi Gras goes back to the middle 1700s and it is still growing! There are now about 80 mystic societies, orders, and krewes, with some 30 parades. And that's just in Greater Mobile. Two years ago there was another major addition to the celebration...the Mobile Carnival Museum. Mardi Gras Museum

Published: Thu, January 17, 2008 - 12:16 pm Last Updated: Tue, January 29, 2008 - 7:35 pm

Jere Hough

The Mobile Carnival Museum greets you with a full-size float that you can explore and even throw candy to your friends below...just like the maskers do. There's plenty of information about the history of Mardi Gras presented in displays of photos, costumes, invitations, articles, and the like. There's even a reconstructed Queen's banquet. But the most spectacular displays are probably the robes and the regalia of past Royalty.
Edward Ladd, Museum Curator, says, "When you're doing Mardi Gras you really can't take these things in. You can see them if you go to the coronation or if you see them coming down the street on Mardi Gras Day on the King's float, but they just go straight by you. Now you can really stop and look at it and really see the intricate work that goies into these things. They're works of art." He adds, "It's very interesting to hear the reaction of people who come here from all over the country...it's a 'wow,' a great big 'WOW!'"
Some of the video displays show the old nighttime parades were lighted with kerosene torches called flambeaus...open flames on those floats with the maskers moving around throwing moon pies!
Ladds final take on Mardi Gras, "It's a free show for the public. It's a wonderful show. Anmd to see what we have to be proud of here in Mobile. All this is produced here in Mobile...all the trains, every bit of it, the crowns, sceptres, all made right here in Mobile....It's all make believe...Everybody loves make-believe."