Cathedral Square is a municipal park in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...

. It is bordered by the streets of North Claiborne, Dauphin, North Jackson, and Conti.

History

At one time what is now Cathedral Square was part of Mobile's 18th century

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

cemetery, the Campo Santo. The Campo Santo was roughly long by wide and filled portions of what are now several city blocks between Joachim, Dauphin, Franklin, and Conti Streets. Most of the burials were moved to the new

Church Street Graveyard Church Street Graveyard is a historic city cemetery located in Mobile, Alabama. The cemetery is situated on and is surrounded by a brick wall that dates to 1830. At the time that the cemetery was established it lay about a half mile away from ...

in 1819 as Mobile's

city boundary City limits or city boundaries refer to the defined boundary or border of a city. The area within the city limit can be called the city proper. Town limit/boundary and village limit/boundary apply to towns and villages. Similarly, corporate limi ...

expanded. A few graves continued to be accidentally unearthed along Conti Street as late as the 1890s, however. The area that is now Cathedral Square quickly became a commercial block filled with buildings after the relocation of the cemetery. The buildings were then demolished in 1979 to create a public park facing the cathedral. The current park layout was implemented in 1996.

Features

The park features a layout that mirrors the neighboring Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The brick sidewalks mirror the walls and

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

of the cathedral while a

semicircular In mathematics (and more specifically geometry), a semicircle is a one-dimensional locus of points that forms half of a circle. The full arc of a semicircle always measures 180° (equivalently, radians, or a half-turn). It has only one line of ...

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

featuring fountains mirrors the

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

References

{{Mobile, Alabama Parks in Mobile, Alabama