Object description

The Bettie Hunter House is a historic African American residence in Mobile, Alabama, United States. It was the residence of Bettie Hunter, a former enslaved who grew wealthy from a successful hack and carriage business she operated in Mobile with her brother, Henry. The fall of New Orleans during the American Civil War had made Mobile the South's only major port on the Gulf of Mexico. Transportation of goods to and from the port depended on the city's teamsters and their horse or mule-drawn wagons. Bettie Hunter was part of a group of African Americans who recognized the opportunities in the carriage business and she cornered this part of the transportation market in Mobile.