The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-03-20
A Near Birmingham
 Resort--Blount Springs
By MRS J. E. REED

of the grandparents sleeping in Ala bama soil now.
 This wooden rest place has weathered the storm for more than half century and now is a wornout monument. while nearby the health-giving waters trickie through the stone and sands, pourlns out their medicinal virtues whlcn AoE generations have rebuilt the bodies of man. -
 Even though inaccessible for years, in the '4os and sos, the winding, rugged mountain roads were travelled by Vlstors 1 from several southern sttaes going to and fro.
 As the trees begin to don their native green. the woodchuck thumped away on 1 the sturdy oak, the tired and weary, SICK l and worn turned their faces Blount- ward The young and well frollckeo, | climbed the lodges on horseback or pS l foot. Picnic parties made the woods re 1 sound with laughter and tramptng toot- steps.
 That was yesterday. The same ideal spot is there, but man has slept through bis opportunity, with wreck and rum oI hotels and buildings. There is nothing l of the work of man left except the story of it's past But the future is full or possibilities The same old Blount car l he brought to a new life; it only needs the genius of modern good business.
 After only an hours ride from Blr mingham over the Louisville ana Nash- vile. through stone laden mountains is RIount Springs The soil Is produc- l tive: it once was slpendid market ol homemade products-even the nome snun goods The mountains and valleys have grown splendid timbers, and the winding streams flow through naturaI meadows. On the mountain, DuIile mountain, we can stand and rom one side peep into the Tennessee valley and from the other, looking below, IS a ragged mountain side from which has
 been gashed a volume of lime rock, once
 well-worked quarry, which gave 10
 Birmingham a part of it's mineral
 wealth, and supplied Sloss furnace with
 material blended with the red ore In
 making iron.
 The creek beds are often carpeted
 with slate rock, and where roads have
 been dug out of the mountain sides
 great shelves of slate are secreteu oS
 the massive beds of blooming wild Ivy
 and native ferns. The grave or Ala
 bama's "Poetess of the Mountain MISS
 Mary Gordon Duffee. is there, covered
 with crude rock and native moss. nun / dreds each year climbed the rocky star
 Iuav m the mountain to see Miss Duf
 fee and her resting place will ever o'
 of interest Where she sleeps, curlo'
 will be treasured, even the iny Wl''
 violet which blooms there raises It
 head as if to say in her own words'
 ''Who dare look at the violet blue As it peeps through the rocky earth And doubt either me or you.
 The truth. that God, who gave l birth?"
 On wonder hill. meath pended tree is a vacant place-the grave, whicl once held the remains of George Y Fitzhugh, near relative of Robert Lee, and of Fitzhugh Lee. He came, Iyoung man. from Virginia, civil engi neer and was one of the builders of tn North and South railroad, whicl | brought accessibility to Bloun Springs and materially aided in placinI our Magic City on the map of Alabama He married a beautiful mountain glrl Miss Arminda Livingston. Their daugh ter, Mrs. D. T. Talley. lives in this cit. N now MT and Mrs. Fitzhugh sleep to \ gether today in Elmwood cemetery, bu | the vacant grave on the mountain sid \ will ever tell of beautiful romance | the seventies. With such full histor. and nature so bountiful, Blount Spring