Springs of Metro Atlanta

IS THIS REAL?

The Georgia State Department of Urban Springs is fiction. This is a project that I dreamed up for a group exhibition called Collective Telling: Southern Rooted Perspectives on Place, History + Emergence in January 2024 at Echo Contemporary Art in Atlanta.

But it could be real.

The springs are real. They are still flowing in obscure pipes and ditches, tucked away underneath parking lots and ballfields, alongside railroad tracks and deep in the margins of Atlanta’s oldest intersections. The water is probably not as clean or abundant as it was when “mineral springs” formed the centerpiece of health resorts and pleasure spots a hundred years ago, but the springs are still there, and still valuable.

The springs in these photos are real. These are snapshots from my family’s visits to real parks in urban and rural areas across the country where springs are preserved and celebrated. They show what’s possible and make me jealous for Atlanta.

This isn’t fantasy or science fiction. We don’t have to invent new technology or bend reality to make this happen. Restoring and protecting our springs is possible with the tools and resources we have today.

I believe Atlanta’s springs are still crucial. For pleasure and recreation, worship and cultural identity, but most of all for justice. Everyone deserves access to water.

So I imagined a state-level government agency to manage the hidden springs underneath Atlanta. By focusing on these little springs, we could create a different kind of city, one that’s greener, kinder, and cooler for everyone.

Visible, Drinkable, Swimmable Springs

john r. lewis memorial park splash pad

Once the site of Hapeville’s municipal pool, the city found a creative way to repurpose the site and the natural springs there by constructing a splash pad in 2023.

hapeville, georgia

Radium Springs gardens

Just south of Albany is one of the “seven wonders of Georgia.” With its clear, coke-bottle green waters and ornate stone gardens, Radium Springs is romantic backdrop for Instagramming. Albany’s disasters—the 1994 flood and 2017 tornado—are memorialized at the park along with the resort and casino era of the springs. Swimming is fobidden here, which is a real shame that undermines the future of the park.

Radium Springs, Georgia

Liberty Bell Pool, F.D. Roosevelt state park

Most of the spring-fed pools from this era were destroyed by the 1960s. Because it was designed by President Roosevelt, built by the CCC, and protected in a state park, this pool survived and is still open to the public. The bell-shaped pool is filled with chilly water from the King’s Gap spring, which is then treated with chlorine and circulated with modern filtration. This is my favorite public pool in Georgia.

Pine Mountain, Georgia

Hambidge Center Spring house

I love spring houses. I first learned about the mysterious old spring houses of Appalachia while visiting my family in Western NC—mossy stones and the smell of wet earth, half buried in a shady hillside. They look like fairy houses. This is one of several historic spring houses at The Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences, along a trail that follows Betty’s Creek. It seems like every spring deserves its own little fairy house like this.

Rabun Gap, Georgia

barton springs

A beloved 3-acre swimming hole in the heart of Austin, Texas, Barton Springs is a remarkable example of what’s possible in a major American city with watershed protection and dedicated funding. Barton Springs is owned and managed by the City of Austin Parks and Recreation, with support from the Barton Springs Conservancy.

austin, texas

Rolater Lake

Each week, this “swimming lake” is filled with water directly from the cave spring, then drained and cleaned at the end of the weekend. Without chemicals in the water, slippery algae starts to build up immediately, so the bottom of the pool is gritty with sand. The lake and park is named after Dr. Joseph Rolater, whose private estate still owns and manages the springs. You can tour the cave for a dollar. The preppers filling their 5-gallon jugs at the spring claim it’s the the sweetest tasting water on earth.

Cave Spring, Georgia

Indian Springs state park

This is the first and oldest state park in Georgia and the nation. The state protected 100 acres around the spring in the 1821 treaty with representatives from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation that ceded lands east of the Flint River to the State of Georgia. People still line up in the springhouse built by the CCC to fill their jugs with sulphur-scented drinking water.

Flovilla, Georgia

Wakulla Springs state park

Near Tallahassee are the world’s biggest springs, pronounced “wah-cull-uh,” blasting 400 million gallons of freshwater a day. This is where Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed! It’s freezing, but there are alligators and manatees hanging out by the popular swimming areas. Over the last 40 years, the crystal waters that made the springs famous have darkened with algae and hydrilla, which has galvanized local advocates to protect not just the park, but also surrounding watershed from the impacts of development.

Wakulla Springs, Florida

athens town spring

Athens’ founding spring is located downtown on the corner of Fulton Street and Spring Street on property owned by the Georgia Board of Regents. The springs were uncovered and landscaped in 2008 by the grounds department at UGA and Athens-Clarke County Public Works. There’s no signage to mark the springs or native plantings, so it’s easy to drive by and miss it. Flowing water is visible and audible in the storm drains.

athens, georgia

Marr’s Spring

This was a popular swimming hole up until the 1970s. The University of Alabama was founded in Tuscaloosa in 1827 by this spring. This charming little park in the middle of campus is a good spot to eat a sandwich between classes or line up with your sorority sisters for a photo.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Lava Hot Springs

Do you understand how hot 112˚ feels? I could only handle it for a few minutes. The “world-famous” pools are owned by the state of Idaho and managed by a foundation. Along with the tourists, citizens of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe frequent these thermal mineral springs as a therapeutic resource.

Lava Hot Springs, Idaho

Cascade Springs Nature Preserve

A real urban spring, right in the city! Once a health resort that sold bottled water, Cascade Springs was purchased by the City of Atlanta Parks Department in the 1970s. Since then, the Cascade Springs Conservancy has worked with the city to make this into a true public oasis.

Atlanta, Georgia