The depression lasted several years, and before complete recovery it became complicated with a commercial problem. Railroads had been invented, and Mobile with all other ports had to face new problems. M. J. D. Baldwin preached the necessity of building a Mobile road to the growing West, but long he was laughed at as a Cassandra. He persevered, and in 1848 the Mobile & Ohio Railroad was begun towards Cairo, Illinois. It was a magnificent conception, and right fitting it was that Baldwin should have driven the last spike of its realization. The result was that by 1860 the cotton receipts had grown to eight hundred thousand bales, and the next year were about a million. In 1852 was a disastrous flood, and next year the worst epidemic of her history; but the results were only temporary. New banks, like the Southern and Mechanics (afterwards the Mobile Savings), were organized, the Battle House, Custom-House and other fine buildings erected, and Fort Gaines faced older Fort Morgan at the mouth of the bay. Society had long outgrown the crudeness of earlier days, and Mobile hospitality and refinement were famous. At her Bar were John A. Campbell (whose sister, Mrs. Chandler, was the grandmother of the Mrs. Maybrick, now so famous), Daniel Chandler, George N. Stewart, Robert H. Smith, Peter Hamilton, D. C. Anderson, Philip Phillips, E. S. Dargan and other splendid lawyers. In literature there was ample atonement for the neglect of early days. Among Mobile’s books appeared in 1854 Dr. Nott’s _Types of Mankind_, and in 1859 came Madame LeVert’s _Souvenirs of Travel_, and Augusta Evans’s _Beulah_. John Forsyth and Charles C. Langdon were famous editors of the time, and politics, of course, ran high. The town was generally Whig, and Mr. Clay’s welcome in 1844 was as cordial as was that of Jackson in earlier years. At that time, by the way, Macready held the boards, and drawled a strenuous objection to the announcement on his playbills that Henry Clay would be present at one of his performances. [Illustration: JOHN A. CAMPBELL.] Mobile theatres, except the last, have generally burned after a few years. The best was built by Caldwell on Royal Street, near St. Michael, and the best-known manager was Noah M. Ludlow, who, with Sol. Smith, operated a Mobile-New Orleans-St. Louis circuit. Ludlow and Smith played a great part in the history of the theatre in the Mississippi Valley. Ludlow’s memoirs are an invaluable compilation, and can almost be claimed as a Mobile book, for he long lived here. J. H. Hackett, Madame Celeste, Ellen Tree, Edwin Forrest, J. B. Booth, Macready, H. Placide, Charles Kean, Mrs. Mowatt, Julia Dean, John T. Raymond and Charlotte Cushman were often on the Mobile stage. The present theatre was opened in 1860, and the late Speaker Crisp was often about it when his father conducted it during the war. [Illustration: RAPHAEL SEMMES IN 1861.]