Blue Hole, on the west side of Blount Springs, had its own life long before any modern development - a public swimming hole and waterfall right on old Highway 31, at one point known commercially as the Water Fall Inn and later, under its owner Birmingham TV personality Country Boy Eddie, as Waterfalls USA - a water park he ran near his own ranch in Blount County.
Eddie was Gordon Edward Burns (December 13, 1930 - January 13, 2023, per his gravestone), longtime host of WBRC-TV’s Country Boy Eddie Show from 1957 to 1993; he and his wife Edwina Acton Burns (January 13, 1931 - February 9, 2016) lived on a 200-acre Blount County farm and are buried together at Sulphur Springs Cemetery, in the county.
Sitting on the main highway made the falls a popular stop for travelers, and by one account it drew crowds as a swimming hole from roughly the 1940s into the 1970s - well past 1960, when Interstate 65 opened nearby and pulled the through-traffic off the old road; the highway stop and the swimming hole itself seem to have had somewhat different lifespans.
Blount Springs saw new life starting in 1989, when the Village at Blount Springs - a New Urbanism-influenced, gated residential community - began rising “from the limestone, sheltered by massive oaks, hickories, and beeches.” Blue Hole Lake, the dammed, dredged 7-acre stretch of Mill Creek at its center, is private to residents today; it’s no longer open to the public, though its swimming-hole reputation predates the development by decades.
Related: Blount Springs - the fuller history of the resort community this swimming hole was part of.
Sources: Bhamwiki, “Country Boy Eddie”; and the Water Fall Inn and Waterfalls USA-era photographs and postcards in this project’s collection.
