Michael and Mary Carlen, Irish immigrants, raised twelve children in this 1843 Gulf Coast cottage, the Carlen House, here in Mobile, Alabama. This house was the home of Michael and Mary Carlen, Irish immigrants, and their twelve children, and during the 19th century it operated as a working farm. In 1923 the Mobile County School Board acquired 38 acres (15 ha) of the Carlen property as the site for a new public city school, and because of that change this 1843 cottage now sits on the northern edge of the Murphy High School campus.
The house was recognized for its history when it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 12, 1981. Today the Carlen House is not open to the public, although it is used on occasion by Murphy High School students. As you stand here, feel the layers of time: an immigrant family household, a nineteenth-century farm, a parcel transformed for education in 1923, and a listed historic place since 1981.
Notice the line where this little cottage meets the Murphy High School grounds, campus and cottage now sharing one story.