MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – The MoonPie drop downtown has become an annual New Year’s Eve tradition, but at first it was just a crazy idea.

The author of this idea, Fred Richardson, had a big vision in the early years.

“We have started to conquer the market in the central time zone,” he said during a “Studio 10” appearance in 2012. “That doesn’t worry us anymore. We are looking for the crystal ball. We will be the only city other than New York to broadcast our New Year celebrations nationally.”

Richardson, who served on the Mobile City Council, said he came up with the idea during a trip to Atlanta nearly two decades ago.

“If they can drop a peach in Atlanta, I can drop something in Mobile,” he told FOX10 News on Tuesday. “But I had to figure out what to drop.”

Richardson said the choice of a MoonPie was obvious.

“Whatever I dropped had to be something people would like,” he said. “Well, you can throw a MoonPie to a child, and an adult would jump over the child to get the MoonPie.”

Richardson said he learned from Chatanooga Bakery that Mobile consumes 4 million marshmallow treats each year. So Richardson presented the idea publicly. It wasn’t exactly universally well received. He remembers the ridicule he received.

“A whole year of heat,” he said.

Richardson recalled the criticism: “It was stupid that we could feed the sick and clothe the homeless.”

But Richardson pressed on, and although it was too late to organize New Year’s Eve in 2007, the following year the City Council used $9,000 of his district’s discretionary funds to purchase a papier-mâché MoonPie.

It had humble beginnings. A crowd watched the MoonPie descend from a crane at Cooper Riverside Park. Strong winds forced the city to reduce the elevation from 200 to 100 feet. But Richardson remembers it served its purpose.

“We said if we could just get 2,000 people to the park we would know it would be a success. … And at exactly midnight they left and the crane broke,” he said. “But the people in the park didn’t care. It was freezing cold. We had 15,000 people in the park, so we knew we had something – we knew we had something.”

It has come a long way since then. On Tuesday, musical entertainment begins at 6:30 p.m. with DJ Dalton Muse. The cutting of the “Largest Mooncake in the World” will take place in the courtyard of the Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel. Grayson Capps takes the 9:30 p.m. slot, and then headliner Clint Black will take the crowd to the Midnight Drop.

This original design was replaced with the current 600-pound, 12-foot-tall, aluminum-framed MoonPie, which glides 317 feet down the RSA Trustmark Building in 60 seconds. It anchors an event that includes musical entertainment and a giant edible MoonPie.

According to Events Mobile, the city spends $300,000 annually on the event. But the organization’s president, Shonnda Smith, told FOX10 News that the MoonPie itself costs very little – about $10,000 to $15,000 for annual maintenance. She said the Retirement Systems of Alabama is helping with those costs.

Richardson said the event’s economic impact is more than $5 million.

“It’s the largest one-day event in the city of Mobile,” he said. “Nothing can beat the MoonPie drop.”

Last year, USA Today included it in its list of the 10 best places to watch something fall on New Year’s Eve. But is it really comparable to the famous event in New York?

“We may not be on top of their side, but we are following them,” Richardsons said. “We’re on their trail – there’s no doubt about it.”

Copyright 2024 WALA. All rights reserved.