Comfortable, cozy and well maintained, Alabama’s Blue Springs State Park boasts the state’s most beautiful yet unassuming natural swimming pools. Simple concrete octagons rim twin pools at the low edge of gently sloping fields of grass. No need to worry about over-chlorination at Blue Springs: its pools are fed by natural springs, hidden underground, pumping 3600 gallons of cool, fresh water as clear as crystal every hour. If you’ve ever spent some of a hot August in southern Alabama, you know how welcome an oasis like Blue Springs State Park can be.
Nature’s clean springs may be the main draw to the park, but visitors report with pleasure that the location offers more than a quick swim in a cold hole. Blue Springs will never remind anyone of Yellowstone or Yosemite, but nearly 30,000 visitors per year appreciate its amenities. Many of them leave believing they were lucky, having stumbled upon an undiscovered, albeit undersized jewel.
Amenities and Activities at Blue Springs State Park
Fresh from your swim, you’ll need a place to stay and something to eat. You can get both at Blue Springs or, to put it more accurately, if you bring your own lodging and food, Blue Springs has space for you to park it, set it up, or cook it. The park has neither cabins nor concessions; it offers campsites, grills and picnic tables. That said, it does make a few fully-equipped RV’s available on a rental basis for park stays- a nice, fairly unusual touch for such a small (103 acre) state park.
The 50 listed campsites are modern, although the park permits primitive tent camping as well. Seven of the sites feature sewer hookups for an RV. Each of the 50 sites has a dedicated grill and table. The remainder of the park’s grills and tables are on a catch as you can basis, but the picnic pavilions can be reserved for larger parties and outings. Comfort stations are scattered around the grounds.
The kids can romp in a nice playground, and there are soccer and softball fields, too, in addition to a volleyball court. Fishing inside the park is permitted but, while the small pond is periodically stocked with bream and catfish, it would more likely appeal to a kiddy pole-dipper than a hard-core angler.
Blue Springs State Park is among the smallest Alabama state parks, but can make for a pleasant day or three. It sits in Barbour County, on land acquired via the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson, whereby ownership of the territory passed to the state from the Creek Indians.
Your stay in Blue Springs might pair well with a jaunt to Eufaula, less than an hour away. Eufaula was a prominent antebellum commercial center and, with over 700 recognized historic structures architecturally representative of the period, numbers high among Alabama’s preeminent historic districts.