Historic Blue Springs Church burns to ground
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Reunion still planned for September
Ashes and rubble are all that remain of the 174-year-old Blue Springs Church. Photo by Marble Valley VFD
The historic Blue Springs Church building was fully engulfed in flames when fire departments responded early Monday morning. Photo by Lay Lake VFD
Described by many as a peaceful place where they could feel God, the serene historic church included views from some of the pews of the adjoining cemetery. Photo by David Green
The historic Blue Springs Church. Photo submitted
Nothing remains of the 174-year-old Blue Springs Church following a fire Monday morning. The fire remains under investigation. Photo(s) by Devan Smith
Blue Springs Church and Cemetery. Photo submitted
By Christa Jennings
Senior Staff Writer
A roaring blaze early Monday morning brought with it the demise of a 174-year-old church building, leaving behind nothing but ashes and memories.
Blue Springs Church was located in the northwestern area of Coosa County, just across the Talladega County line south of Fayetteville. At approximately 3 a.m. Monday, May 20, the call came in that the historic church building was on fire.
Lay Lake, Stewartville, Marble Valley, and Fayetteville volunteer fire departments responded to the scene, with Fayetteville providing mutual aid with Marble Valley. Unfortunately, the old church building was already nearly gone by the time units responded, as the wooden structure burned quickly.
Marble Valley Volunteer Fire Department extended its gratitude to the departments who responded to the call to provide assistance.
“It is a sad time in Marble Valley,” said Marble Valley Fire Chief Lester Duke. “As fire chief of Marble Valley over the past 12 years, I have seen the church flourish with homecomings and family reunions and decorations. I’ve seen it being vandalized several times. I’ve seen where a vehicle drove through the front of the church, but yet the building survived. I was hoping and praying that it was going to be repaired and restored to its once historical condition. I’m praying for peace and comfort for our community, our county and especially to all the families who have loved ones buried there.”
Sheriff Michael Howell said that the church fire is still under investigation. He asked the state fire marshal to come out and assist with the investigation, adding that they are looking into what may have caused the fire.
Howell said that the fire marshal should return to the site early next week to continue aiding with the investigation and try to determine the cause of the fire. He and the fire marshal ask that visits to the site be limited as the investigation is ongoing.
“My thoughts and prayers go out to that community,” Howell said. “I know that was an old church that had been in the community for more than 100 years. It’s such a tragedy to see it now burnt to the ground.”
Anyone who has information that might help with the investigation is asked to call the Sheriff’s Office at 256-377-4922.
While there was limited damage to the Blue Springs Cemetery next to the church, nothing of the church building remains.
The Blue Springs and surrounding communities are still coping with the loss of the historic church, but the Board of Directors of Blue Springs Cemetery Inc. continues to look ahead. The board consists of Miranda Hamilton, Angie Limbaugh, Thomas Hamilton, and Carla Britton.
Built in 1850, the church was located at 11 Coosa County Road 99. Located in such a remote area of the county, the church and cemetery are accessed easiest by traveling through Fayetteville and Talladega Springs across the Coosa County line.
In reminiscing over the church’s rich history in the community, Board Member Miranda Hamilton said that a Johnson family donated the land for the church to be built on, with the family living in the Blue Springs community and eventually being buried in the adjoining cemetery.
There has been some confusion over whether the church was a Methodist or Baptist church, but Hamilton explained it was really both.
Originally a Methodist church that belonged to the Methodist Association, with fewer church services held there and difficulty getting Methodist preachers to the area, over time the association gave the property to the Blue Springs Cemetery Committee Inc. Once the property was deeded to the committee, Baptist preachers began coming in, and it became a Baptist church.
Hamilton recalled that Blue Springs was a large community at one time, with the church building being used for many things besides a church. She said that it was a school and also served a health clinic with doctor visits, and the church yard was sometimes used for commodity sales similar to farmers markets.
“The church was used for a whole lot,” she said. “It was the center of the community back then.”
Many residents of the community had the surname Hamilton, and she said that is how the Hamilton Day Reunion came about. Over time, it was changed to the Blue Springs Reunion because they did not want to leave out anyone from the community.
“There’s Bakers, McDaniels, Kelleys – there’s a lot of people that were raised up in that area whose last name isn’t Hamilton, so we changed it to include all of them,” Hamilton said.
She explained that the community has the reunion every year on the third Sunday in September, with this year’s event being the ninety-eighth one.
“So 2026 will be the one-hundredth reunion,” Hamilton said. “We’re excited about that.”
She said that there have only been two years the committee did not hold the reunion, and that was during World War II and COVID-19.
During the annual reunion they would have a church service then go outside to enjoy a large meal before going back into the church to hear gospel groups singing.
“The church was the center of all of it,” Hamilton said.
However, despite the fire and the loss of the building, the reunion will go on as planned. She said that they have held the reunion outside the last several years because of extensive vandalism of the historic building.
Hamilton said that people “marked up” the walls, left alcohol bottles and cans behind and knocked out the old windows. The committee did not want to continue repainting the building and replacing the windows just to have them continue to be damaged, so it stopped its efforts to repair after the last few acts of vandalism.
Additionally, a few years ago a pickup truck ran into part of the church building and destroyed it. Hamilton said the committee had to sue the driver’s insurance company. While the company paid $24,000, she said the lowest bid they received for repairing the building was $60,000.
After much thought, she said the committee had decided it would have the historic building taken down, which was going to happen soon.
“That was going to be heartbreaking, but I guess what the biggest heartbreak with this fire has been is that if it was vandalism, it’s like they had the last say and they won this by burning it down,” she said. “It’s a pride thing. It’s a heart thing. It makes us angry and hurts our hearts that they finally won.”
Plans were underway to tear down the building this summer, with Hamilton saying she had bids in for the demolition already. She said that the committee had not yet made a decision on which bid it wanted to go with, and then the fire happened.
In thinking about demolishing the building, Hamilton said that there were some Sunday school rooms built behind the church building in the 1970s or so, with a cement pad under that portion of the building. She said they were going to take everything down and use the cement pad under the Sunday school rooms to put up a metal pavilion and chairs to have it as a sanctuary for people visiting the cemetery or wanting to have picnics.
“Throughout time everybody has said, and it is true if you go down there, that is the most peaceful place,” Hamilton said. “It’s such solitude and just peaceful. Anybody that goes down there is like, ‘We feel God in this place.’ Everyone has said it. Even the sheriff that came down there the other day said the place has a peaceful feel to it. It’s just a feeling you get down there.”
Regarding the decision to raze the church building, she added, “That was our plan. Then something happened.”
While many voiced concerns that the fire was the result of arson, Hamilton said that there was lightning in the area less than 24 hours before Monday’s fire. She said the building could have been struck by lightning and smoldered until it caught fire, or that somebody could have started the fire.
She hopes that they will soon have an answer, saying that when the site has cooled down the fire marshal is supposed to bring in dogs that can sniff out any kind of accelerant.
“Whether we can prove anything, that’s another story, but we can at least know what caused it,” she said.
Hamilton said that the church has truly been the center point of the community for 174 years, and she and the others are saddened by the sudden loss.
While the church is gone, efforts are ongoing to maintain the cemetery and clean up some of the graves. While it is unknown exactly how many are buried there, records indicate there are at least more than 200 graves in the Blue Springs Cemetery.
Hamilton said they have prohibited any further burying there because of not being certain where all the graves are. With many of the older graves, people could not afford headstones and just placed a rock on the site to serve as a grave marker, but over time the rocks have been moved or become hard to distinguish.
At one point someone went to the cemetery to bury someone and ended up digging into a casket in the process. Hamilton said since they do not know exactly where all the graves are, the decision was made at that time that they could not bury any more in that cemetery.
Some graves there predated the church, meaning they were there prior to 1850. Hamilton said the graves go all the way up to 2019, which was the last one they let be buried there.
The area is truly remote, with the church never having running water. Once a bustling community that was larger than Sylacauga at that time, there are now no homes left near the church site.
Even with plans to tear down the building, Hamilton said they were going to remove things carefully because they knew there were some things under the church, such as old hymnals, and they had hoped to save any remnants of the church they could.
She added that someone wanted some of the boards from the church to use in memory of the historic building.
The committee was going to have this Saturday be a time for people to come go through the building and get things they wanted because once the demolition started they would be keeping people away for safety.
“But that was all done away with,” Hamilton said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
