Mobile: A town in Alabama from which Mobile Bay takes its name. When, in 1539, Fernando de Soto landed in Florida, and made his wonderful march to the Mississippi, he had a desperate fight with the Creek Indians at a palisaded village called Mauvila or Maubila (probably the name of the tribe), at the junction of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers. From this village the united stream acquired the name which in French became the River Mobile, at whose mouth the town of Mobile was built.

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