Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / I-10 Mobile Bridge Project - TPR's In Focus - April 7, 2026

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I-10 Mobile Bridge Project - TPR's In Focus - April 7, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Janice Hawkins Cultural Arts Park
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  on the main campus of Troy University,
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  featuring the International Arts Center,
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  the Fred Nall Hollis Museum, and the Hua Bao Zhu Gallery.
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  More information at troy.edu slash arts park.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus,
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  and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
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  There is great interest in the progress
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  of the I-10 Mobile River Bridge project
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  on the Alabama coast.
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  And before the construction began,
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  teams of archeologists were busy unearthing
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  the story of people who lived there
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  for thousands of years and the hurricanes they endured.
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  Rachel Hines is a public archeologist
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  who has worked all over the United States
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  with the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service,
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  and was the public outreach coordinator
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  for the University of South Alabama Center
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  for Archeological Studies
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  for the I-10 Mobile River Bridge Archeology Project.
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  Currently, she serves as the public archeologist
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  for the Northwest region
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  of the Florida Public Archeology Network.
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  Rachel, welcome to Troy Public Radio.
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  Thank you so much for having me.
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  Rachel, you worked on one
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  of the most important archeological projects,
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  the I-10 Mobile River Bridge Archeology Project.
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  A lot of people may not realize
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  that there is a federal law that affects federal highways.
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  What is that law and how does it tie into archeology?
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  Yeah, so it's the National Historic Preservation Act
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  passed in 1966 in response to the big interstate projects
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  that were starting to impact
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  to remove our historic structures from the landscape.
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  So as all this development was occurring
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  in the 50s, 60s, 70s,
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  when we're building these interstates
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  and doing different urban renewal projects in cities,
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  so that's where the momentum
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  for the National Historic Preservation Act came from.
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  And really, it's created the entire industry
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  of professional archeology,
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  which says that when there's a federal undertaking
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  that's going to do ground-disturbing work,
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  so that could be anything happening on federal lands,
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  such as cutting timber on a national forest,
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  but it could also be anything that includes federal money.
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  So in the case of the I-10 project,
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  that was a LDOT project,
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  but it received funding
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  from the Federal Highways Administration.
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  Then that project, before it is done,
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  they are required to consider their impacts
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  on cultural resources.
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  So that could be historic structures,
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  but that also includes below-ground cultural resources
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  like archeological sites.
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  So before the project is done,
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  archeologists will come in and assess the area
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  to see if there are any sites
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  to see how the project might impact those sites.
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  And then, such as in the case of an interstate project,
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  then we'll come in and collect as much data
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  as we possibly can.
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  So that's what happened with our I-10 project.
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  We call it a phase three,
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  so complete data collection
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  because we know that those resources
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  are going to be destroyed by the project.
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  And so we just want to learn as much as we possibly can
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  before that happens.
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  Between 2021 and 2023,
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  how many sites did you excavate and what did you find?
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  Yeah, so there were 15 sites
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  that they determined had the potential to tell us more.
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  So there were actually other sites
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  in the right-of-way of this I-10 project,
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  but 15 that we determined to be significant
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  or having more data potential to tell them new stories
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  about the history of Mobile.
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  A lot of these were the size of entire city blocks.
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  So these are huge areas.
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  And the team includes archeologists
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  from the University of South Alabama,
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  as well as archeologists
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  from Wiregrass Archeological Consulting,
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  which is a private cultural resource management firm
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  that we worked with.
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  And they excavated something like 350,000 artifacts.
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  Our oldest artifacts dated to about 2,000 years ago.
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  So that was pottery.
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  And then that continued really all the way up
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  into the present when the interstate
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  was initially constructed in the 1960s.
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  So in the case of this 2,000-old habitation,
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  who were these people?
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  This is a time period that we call the woodland period
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  just because it is when the eastern part
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  of the United States was heavily wooded.
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  And so that impacted the way
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  that people lived on the landscape.
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  The biggest technological innovation
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  that happened during that time
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  was pottery became really widespread.
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  Pottery, like what we found on the I-10 project,
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  to help us understand what time that site was used
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  because different pottery styles were popular
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  at different time periods.
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  So just like how clothing comes in and out of fashion,
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  pottery is the same way.
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  And we can kind of get a gauge
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  on when-ish that site was used.
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  The people that were living in Alabama 2,000 years ago
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  are going to be the ancestors of modern tribes today.
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  So that would be some of the bigger tribes
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  that we worked with for this project
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  and that University of South Alabama is still working with
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  would be Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and Porch Creek.
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  Alabama's only federally recognized tribe
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  that is still in Alabama today,
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  but then of course the Choctaw and Muscogee Creek,
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  they're both out in Oklahoma now.
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  So there are a lot of different groups
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  whose ancestors would have been in Alabama in the past.
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  Those are the different tribes
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  that would be descendants of them.
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  Well, Rachel, your interview today
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  is part one of a two-part interview
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  and you're going to bring us forward in time.
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  Can you give us a little preview of that?
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  People lived on that land right up until the 1960s
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  when the interstate was constructed.
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  So like many cities across the United States,
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  the interstate I-10 sliced right through a neighborhood
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  where people were living.
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  That was an African-American neighborhood in Mobile.
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  So it was known as Down the Bay.
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  Underneath the interstate,
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  we have the homes of the people
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  that were living in that community
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  that were forced to relocate when the interstate was built.
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  It was really surprising to see
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  how much of the sites were preserved
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  right next to the interstate.
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  You would think that when you're doing
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  big construction like that,
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  that there wouldn't be anything left,
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  but really like RV City or the RVs Park
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  during Mardi Gras, which is like right under the interstate
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  as it comes across Mobile Bay.
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  And there are huge pilings going into the ground.
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  There were still intact archeological deposits there.
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  Another thing that was surprising to me personally
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  is we were able to see evidence of past hurricanes,
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  which I didn't realize was something
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  you could see archeologically,
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  but downtown where we have darker soils
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  from where people were living.
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  And then we have the naturally occurring sandy soils
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  where when big hurricanes or storms came through,
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  they would blow those sandy soils in
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  and they would mix with those darker soils
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  and actually make this sort of wavy pattern.
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  And we can actually see when major hurricanes or storms
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  came through Mobile in the past.
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  So that was a whole new avenue of study
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  that I didn't even know existed
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  and lets us understand the frequency,
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  but also the intensity of storms
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  before we have written records.
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  And hurricanes really started being recorded
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  in like the mid 1800s.
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  So this lets us even look further back
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  at our hurricane history on the Gulf Coast.
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  And what was the geographic scope of the project?
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  Yes, the project is in support
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  of the I-10 bridge widening project.
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  So where I-10 crosses Mobile Bay,
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  and it's planned to sort of direct it a little bit
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  further south and then widen it
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  so that more cars can cross the Bay at the same time.
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  Most of our sites that we recorded
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  were on the Western side of the bridge.
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  So in downtown Mobile,
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  there were 13 sites just south of downtown
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  stretching from where the bridge comes across
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  all the way down to Virginia Street
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  was our most Southern site.
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  And then we also had two sites in Baldwin County
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  on the Eastern side of the bridge.
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  So that won't change as much
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  and won't have as big of an impact,
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  which is why we had less sites over there.
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  Before we let you go,
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  could you tell us about the project's website?
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  We created a project website
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  where we share the archeology that we did,
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  the oral histories we collected,
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  all different sorts of archival documents.
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  So that is all on the University of South Alabama
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  Center for Archeological Studies page,
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  southalabama.edu slash org slash archeology.
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  And then you can find the I-10 tab on the left navigation
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  and that will unlock all of those resources.
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  Rachel, thank you for your interview today
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  and I will look forward to talking with you again.
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  Yeah, me too.
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  Thank you so much.
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  That was archeologist Rachel Hines
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  in our History in Your Hands series.
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  She served as the public outreach coordinator
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  for the University of South Alabama
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  Center for Archeological Studies,
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  where she developed an outreach program
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  for the I-10 Mobile River Bridge Archeology Project.
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  We'll talk with her again about the story
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  of one of the multi-generational families
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  who lived in the area impacted by the I-10 Project.
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  Thanks for joining us for In Focus,
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  which is a podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson
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  and this is listener supported Troy Public Radio.