Blount Springs
Blount County, Blount County, Alabama
Marker Inscription
Blount Springs Famous health resort 1843-1914 Here fashionable ladies and gentlemen of the South vacationed with their families.
Erected by Alabama Historical Association
The Story
From the 1840s until the eve of the First World War, Blount Springs was one of the South's fashionable mineral-water resorts, its sulfur springs drawing well-to-do families seeking health and leisure. Guests arrived by rail to hotels and cottages for the summer season, part of a 19th-century American vogue for 'taking the waters.' The resort's long run ended in the early 20th century.
Why it matters
Blount Springs captures the Gilded Age culture of Southern spa resorts, a vanished world of leisure and railroad tourism that shaped how Americans traveled and vacationed.
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Themes & tags
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