If you live off Cottage Hill or Schillinger, your July calendar isn't really about downtown festivals. It's about which park you're at, what time, and whether you're stopping for coffee on the way. West Mobile's summer runs on a quiet handoff between two large public parks that do different jobs at different hours, and 2026 added two brand-new corridor anchors that quietly reshuffled the everyday stops between them.
That's the frame this post uses. Once you see the split, the rest of the season plans itself.
The Two-Park Split
Medal of Honor Park at 1711 Hillcrest Road and West Mobile County Park at 2275 Leroy Stevens Road are both public, both free, both large. They are not interchangeable. Medal of Honor is the daylight family park; West Mobile County Park is the evening sports and event park. Knowing the difference is the whole trick.
Medal of Honor covers roughly 133 acres and was renamed from Cottage Hill Park in August 2001 to honor Private First Class John D. New. It carries the daytime layer of a West Mobile summer: a free splash pad, playgrounds, walking trails, an amphitheater that hosts the Mobile Pops on summer evenings, and the four-acre Julien Marx Dog Park with separate small and large dog sections plus water fountains and shade.
West Mobile County Park is a different animal. It's roughly 67 acres organized around eight lighted baseball and softball fields, a lighted football field, a lighted soccer field, plus an 18-hole disc golf course that has an active local bag-tag league (the Wemo Bag Tags on UDisc). It's the Friday-night park. It's also where the county closes out its free Summer Movie Nights series.
| Medal of Honor Park | West Mobile County Park | |
|---|---|---|
| Address | 1711 Hillcrest Rd | 2275 Leroy Stevens Rd |
| Acres | ~133 | ~67 |
| Best for | Splash pad, dog park, morning walks, amphitheater shows | Youth sports, disc golf, Friday-night events |
| Signature summer draw | Inflatable Night, Aug 1 | Summer Movie Nights closer, July 31 |
| When residents actually go | Morning and mid-afternoon | Late afternoon and after dark |
What's Actually on the Calendar Between Now and Labor Day
The West Mobile summer condenses into a short list of dated, free, name-them-on-a-map events. Put these on the fridge:
- Fri, July 31, 7 p.m. — Summer Movie Nights: Angels in the Outfield at West Mobile County Park. Free. Bring a lawn chair. This is the finale of the county's Fridays-only series that ran from May 15 through July 31, skipping June 19 and July 3.
- Sat, Aug 1, 7–10 p.m. — Inflatable Night: Grown-Up Edition at Medal of Honor Park. Free, 21-and-up, oversized inflatables, DJ Herb Love, food trucks, ID required at the gate, coolers and lawn chairs allowed, no glass.
- Ongoing — Wemo Bag Tags disc golf league at West Mobile County Park's 18-hole course. Dawn-to-dusk course access is free.
The rest of the summer texture happens on the fields at West Mobile County Park (youth baseball and softball tournaments) and along Medal of Honor's walking loops, which the park keeps well-lit into the evening.
The Cottage Hill Corridor Just Got Two New Anchors
Between those two parks runs the everyday spine of West Mobile: Cottage Hill Road, Schillinger Road, Airport Boulevard. In the last six weeks that spine picked up two named openings that changed how residents plan errands around the parks.
Wawa, 5133 Cottage Hill Road, opened on Thursday, July 2, 2026 at 8 a.m., at the corner of Cottage Hill and University. The Pennsylvania-based chain ran a full opening-day playbook here: a countdown, free T-shirts for the first 100 customers, an 8:30 ribbon-cutting, a Hoagies for Heroes hoagie-building competition with local first responders, and free any-size hot coffee July 2 through July 5. This is a functional change to the corner, not a novelty. If your morning ends at Medal of Honor's splash pad, the coffee-and-hoagie stop is now on the way instead of a detour.
Jack's, 9855 Airport Boulevard, opened June 1, 2026 at 5 a.m. as the Alabama-based chain's first Mobile location and its 290th store overall. The company said the store would create between 50 and 60 jobs, and the opening promotion gave the first 50 guests free breakfast for a month. The menu leans on the Alabama staples the chain is known for: Conecuh sausage dogs, breakfast burritos, chicken tenders, fried pies. For families driving in from the Airport Boulevard side of the neighborhood before a Saturday game at West Mobile County Park, the pre-game stop map now has an option it didn't have in May.
Both openings sit inside the retail belt residents already use daily. Schillinger Place at the southwest corner of Schillinger and Cottage Hill still anchors the tenant mix that includes Club 4 Fitness, Mediterranean Sandwich Co., and Port City MMA. Cottage Hill regulars still have Foosackly's on Schillinger, Moe's Original BBQ West Mobile, and Meat Boss on Cottage Hill for the after-game stop. What changed in 2026 is the north end of the corridor picking up national anchors that reset the coffee-and-quick-food layer.
The Weekend Walk Most Residents Forget They Have
The third piece of a West Mobile summer isn't a park at all. It's the Glenn Sebastian Nature Trail on the University of South Alabama campus, off Aubrey Green Drive between Health Services Drive and the main traffic circle. The USA campus rec department maintains more than three miles of trails through 95 acres of native pine and oak woodlands, and AllTrails clocks the White Route loop at 2.1 miles with 111 feet of elevation gain, easy classification, roughly half an hour to an hour to complete.
Two things make it the sensible summer walk. First, the canopy. Most of the loop is shaded, which matters at 3 p.m. in July when the exposed sections of Medal of Honor's perimeter turn punishing. Second, USA also runs a separate 18-hole disc golf course starting on Aubrey Green Drive near the Facilities Warehouse, with parking at the nature trail entrance. If your household has one hiker and one disc golfer, one parking lot serves both.
The pattern to hold in your head: mornings and playtime at Medal of Honor, shaded loops at Glenn Sebastian in the heat of the day, Friday nights and league sports at West Mobile County Park. The Cottage Hill corridor connects all three and just got two new stops on it.
A Sample Weekend, Mapped
To make it concrete, here's a real weekend a West Mobile resident could run in late July without leaving the neighborhood or paying an admission fee:
Saturday morning starts at Medal of Honor's splash pad while the kids are at their best temperature. Coffee comes from the new Wawa on Cottage Hill on the way. Lunch is on Schillinger. Late afternoon, the household splits: one adult and the dog to the Julien Marx Dog Park at Medal of Honor, the other adult to the Glenn Sebastian Nature Trail's White Route loop for a shaded 2.1 miles. Dinner is Meat Boss or Moe's Original. If it's the last Friday of the month, the whole family relocates to West Mobile County Park at 7 p.m. for the county's free movie night, chairs and blankets in the trunk.
Sunday afternoon is a round of disc golf, either at West Mobile County Park's 18-hole course on Leroy Stevens or at the USA course on Aubrey Green. Sunday night winds down at Medal of Honor's amphitheater if the Mobile Pops are on the calendar.
None of that requires I-65. That's the point, and it's what "living in West Mobile" actually looks like on a summer weekend in 2026.
The Take
West Mobile isn't short on summer. It's short on readers who bother to map it. The two-park split, the shaded USA trail in the middle of the day, and the two new anchors on Cottage Hill and Airport are enough to run a full season without repeating a stop. Once August 1 passes and Inflatable Night packs up, the rhythm shifts toward youth sports at West Mobile County Park and toward the fall softball and baseball tournaments the fields were built for. The corridor stays the corridor.
If you're already here, keep this post as a checklist. If you're the one in the household who tracks the neighborhood's shifts closer than most, that's the same instinct that makes for a smooth home sale or a well-timed purchase when the time comes. When it does, The Cummings Company is a family-led, Mobile-based team ready to talk through it on your schedule. Start Your Home Search when you're ready.
