Magnolia Springs, Alabama

History

Magnolia Springs is located at the headwaters of the Magnolia River, which was originally called River de Lin, Cataract Creek, or River del Salto by local residents. The origins of the community date back to the 1700s with the plantations of French and British settlers lining Magnolia River and Weeks Bay. Cattle, fishing, and masonry were commonplace industries at the time. Later, the largest enterprise in the area was turpentine distillation. These stills were burned by their owners in 1865 to prevent them from being captured when Union soldiers began amassing in the area. Various boats and steamships brought travelers and more residents into the area.

One leaves "the Old Spanish Trail at the eastern head of the Cochrane Bridge, and drives south through Fairhope along Mobile Bay. Ten or fifteen miles beyond is the pleasant little village of Magnolia Springs, and one is in the sandy Gulf Coast soil where these people have their farms and community life. They call themselves 'Creoles', and their white neighbors qualify the term by calling them '[expletive deleted] Creoles.' The question of Negro blood has long been a sensitive spot with the Creole population of Louisiana and other southern states, but in Baldwin County it means only one thing to the dominant white class: some degree of Negro extraction."

From the History section of Magnolia Springs, Alabama on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.