The Mineral Springs of Pickens County.
There are two sections of Mineral Springs Road in Pickens County, north and south. Oddly, the dividing line in our county is Highway 515. Mineral Springs North is east of 515, and south is west of 515.
In 1895, The Republican, an early Pickens County paper mentioned both springs, although the distances to one of the two springs was incorrect.
In Luke Tate's History of Pickens County, published in the 1930s, he refers to two springs. The Simmons Mineral Spring, (named after James Simmons - although Tate doesn't mention him) located about 1.5 miles northwest of Jasper, and the Tate Mineral Spring (not located in Tate, but in the Persimmon District of the southwestern part of Pickens.), about 5 miles SW of Jasper. The Tate Mineral Spring was named this because heirs of the Tate Family owned the land the spring was on.
In 1913, Georgia's State Geologist, S.W. McCallie, traveled to and catalogued all of the well-known mineral springs in the state. The two above were listed. At the time of the publication of the state geologist, the Tate Mineral Spring had improvements upon the land and spring, to include a crudely constructed bath house and a cottage. The Tate Mineral Spring flowed at a rate of six gallons per minute and also was chalybeate with a strong irony taste. It left a reddish-brown color.
Why did it have a bathhouse? Because for it was believed the mineral composition of the spring and medicinal and healing properties. By the time Luke wrote his book, some two decades later, the bathhouse and cottage were gone.
In 1941, Pickens County's former resident, Gene Teague occasionally walked with his father to the spring to drink the water. The spring wasn't far away from a two-story house owned by the Patrick family. (The same family that occupied Lonesome City, the abandoned ghost town across from the Tate Mansion.) There was no bathhouse then, no cabin. Just a marker tree and something left behind to scoop the water out. The mineral spring was located on the right side of the road (west) as you headed toward Bethany Baptist Church.
In the 1940s Mineral Springs Road connected from Main Street in Jasper to Bethany Road, not far from present day Highway 108. Today, Mineral Springs Road South is blocked off on both sides of a 42-acre parcel. It's not supposed to be. It's a thoroughfare that functions as an easement. However, since the county maintenance for the road ends on both sides of Mineral Springs South on either side of this property, and because it's okay to block off a road because you feel like it, it remains barricaded.
The good news is the mineral spring is located one land lot above it in Land Lot 132. The bad news is the road from Bethany north isn't just blocked by fences and moved earthworks, but also by terrible rutting. The culverts along the road are still holding up, but I wouldn't recommend negotiating the terrain with anything other than a 4 x 4 or on foot.
As for the Simmons Mineral Spring, it was unimproved and essentially just sat on the land within Land Lot 236. Located one land lot away from the old Simmons Tavern along the Old Federal Road. It was a small chalybeate spring that flowed at a rate of two gallons a minute. The water tasted irony and cast a reddish-brown color.
The most famous local mineral spring, beyond the scope of Pickens, was located at White Path, at the White Path Hotel. Redden W. Randell purchased the land with the spring after the hotel burned down in the late 1920s. About a half mile away, in July of 1933, Redden murdered his wife, the first of several people he would kill. But that comes in a later story.
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