Bayou La Batre is a fishing village with a seafood-processing harbor for fishing boats and shrimp boats. The local Chamber of Commerce has described the city as the "Seafood Capital of Alabama" for packaging seafood from hundreds of fishing boats. It was the first permanent settlement on the south Mobile County mainland and was founded in 1786, when French-born Joseph Bouzage was awarded a 1,259-acre Spanish land grant on the West Bank of the bayou. Photo by Carol Highsmith.