Presentation by Evelyn Sapp
April 11, 1989
Blount Springs was one of Alabama’s fashionable spas of yesteryear. Today, it is but a ghost town of the long-ago place that entertained thousands of people. Some were fun lovers; others were health seekers. Many came to get away from the heat of the city. Many came from South Alabama to get away from “the chills and fever country.” The temperature is always cool at night, even in hot weather.
It all began in 1828, when J. H. Harris and G. Perrine purchased the property to make a renowned watering place. It almost became the “Alabama Fountain of Youth.” After constructing a three-story, 40-room hotel in colonial style, bands would meet the trains to welcome guests. Several other hotels were built later. The guests drank water from the different springs. There were seven different kinds of springs in one area, the most popular being the Red Sulphur. It was said to contain more sulphuretted hydrogen and lithium than any other water in the state. The guests took hot baths in it, thinking it would help rheumatism and other ailments. The rates were as follows: $2.00 per day and $10.50 to $12.50 per week. Cottages began to spring up everywhere. Brett Randolph of Greensboro built the first family cottage close to the springs.
In 1850, the property deeds to the large hotel were held in the name of George Goffe. The Goffe House, as it was first known, was later changed to the Duffee House. Matthew Duffee’s daughter, Mary Gardon Duffee, whom we remember as “Molly,” acted as hostess in charge of social affairs.
Another hotel built during this time was called Jackson Inn, or Jackson House. A Dr. Robinson practiced medicine and surgery there.
In all these hotels, slot machines were in use. Businesses at Blount Springs included a saloon, a bottling company, a boarding house, five general stores, a cotton gin, a lawyer, three physicians, a livery stable, a blacksmith, a post office, a telegraph office, and a railroad agent. There were probably others of which I am not aware.
Blount Springs was incorporated in 1885. James Cox was the first mayor, and Thomas Jones was Justice of the Peace. Later, Blount Springs property was bought by the Sloss brothers, who ran the Sloss Furnace in Birmingham. They renovated the big hotel in a “big way,” installing gas lights, building bathhouses, and piping freestone water into the hotel. They hired a gardener from Louisville and also brought French chefs from New Orleans. They built a billiard parlor indoors and a bowling alley at the springs. The resort took on new life. To celebrate, they gave the most brilliant affair that had ever been staged at the springs. By 1888, the summer population reached 3,000.
In 1903, the Sloss holdings were sold to Mel Drennen, who constructed a dam along Cold Creek with boating, etc., in mind. It is still intact. He hired Alvin Sinclair to manage the hotel. Mr. Sinclair kept up the old standards of hospitality. He hired a young woman by the name of Annie Rice Hamilton, a cousin of mine, as hostess. However, the hotel burned in 1914. Mrs. Hamilton retrieved an old buffet, and Mr. Drennen gave it to her. It is now at the home of my cousin, Mrs. Gibbs, in the Ricetown community. Mr. Sinclair died in 1918 with a ruptured appendix while en route to Birmingham by train to the hospital. His store also burned the same night.
During the Blount Springs heyday, several Black families were brought in to assist arrivals from the depot to the hotels. Some were hired to slaughter cattle to cook; there was no delivery service then. A slaughter pen was built along Cold Creek with easy access to water. Several of these Black families stayed but lived on one particular mountain and colonized their own community on Hayden Mountain.
The railroad was later relocated east of Blount Springs, and this actually sounded a death knell for the resort town. Improved modes of travel also contributed to its decline.
Adding a postscript to this era is a footnote about Molly Duffee. She retreated to the mountains and became a recluse. She wrote poetry and essays for a Birmingham paper. One of the Black families, the Isaac Point family, lived by her and looked after her. She came to my cousin’s house, the Frye family, 74 years ago when their baby was born. She sat down and wrote a poem dedicating it to the baby. When this family moved back to the farm, the poem got lost in the shuffle. In it she said something about, “You were born today, little one, in a busy little hamlet, but before you get old, the resort will be grown up in blackberry briars.” How prophetic!
My memory of Blount Springs is during the late 1920s and 1930s. Many summer cottages had been built on the mountain ridges. There were quite a few families that had become permanent residents, my parents being among them. My father carried the mail from Blount Springs for 40 years. My uncle at that time was still running the only remaining hotel, one that he had built—a three-story structure. We looked forward to Friday and Saturday afternoons, when our weekend neighbors would arrive. Our neighbor was Roy Osborne, a businessman who worked with Black loan, Standard Oil, and Osborne Trucking. Others whom I remember were Judge Joel Brown of Montgomery. From Birmingham came the Badhams, Willoughbys, Lights, Burdettes, Burgesses, Fitzhughs, Hoberts, Coles, and Gladdens, and from Cullman came the McCoys and Lees.
The Avondale Mills built a camp for their families to enjoy. We played, hiked, explored caves, etc., with the children. We also enjoyed open-air concerts by bands, and especially did we enjoy the wonderful Jordan family, not dreaming that one day they would become famous.
During my childhood, there were two churches, four stores, a library, a garage, a post office, Avondale Camp, and a restaurant. Actually, there was just one church, Methodist. The Baptists went to church in the school. The children were brought in from the country; the grades were 1–9. There was also a Black school and church.
Some of our activities as children were hunting chestnuts all over the hillside before the blight killed the trees, hiking all over Duffee’s Mountain, and staring off “Lover’s Leap,” retelling the legend, which probably was not true. It was a huge quarry where lime rock was crushed and shipped out by train. We would look at the ruins of Molly Duffee’s home with awe. We had heard that so many of her poems had burned with the house. We also took our guests and friends to the pivot rock, which is still a wonder of nature to see.
How excited we all were that the blackberry briars would be cleaned out and that this place, so dear to some of us, would be a thriving place again!