Traveling the
BACKROADS
Montgomery-Scott home in St. Clair Springs
A group enjoys life at St. Clair Springs. 34 ⢠DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair | December 2011 - January 2012
blocks that hardly bespeak a once-prosperous community. The spring basins draw little notice unless you know theyâre there. Still, itâs possible to pull off the road, stroll among the springs, admire those country mansions, and allow oneâs imagination a little latitude. Itâs on AL Highway 23, between U.S. Highway 11 and Ashville. Not long after St. Clair Springs began to thrive, another resort was born in the southwestern corner of the county, Cooks Springs, founded by William Praytor Cooke Sr., a Jefferson County native who was a merchant and Realtor by trade. In her book, The Village and Its Neighbors, Anita Smith tells of the Cooke familyâs first resort, which was little more than a few rustic cabins built in the 1840s around some mineral springs Cooke had found on his St. Clair property. Cooks Springs was a very lowbudget operation in those days, built as a supplement to Cookeâs gristmill and farm interests. It became inactive during the Civil War, but revived somewhat in the years that followed. However, it was not destined to flourish until after Williamâs death in 1872. His youngest son, LaFayette, ultimately put Cookeâs resort on the map. An ambitious and hard-working young man, at age 18, LaFayette established a prosperous sawmill and farm on his one-ninth share of Williamâs 300 acres of land, which quickly prospered. He then collaborated with his two brothers, John and Osburn, to form a family-owned mercantile firm. The brothers began acquiring St. Clair property and, by the 1880s, owned some 1,700 acres. Using lumber from his own sawmill, LaFayette built a fine two-story, 60room hotel under the auspices of Cooke Brothers Mercantile Company and, a few years later, bought out his brothersâ interest in CBMC, which became L. Cooke & Co. LaFayette now owned outright a fine resort hotel, 1,700 acres, the mineral springs, and a railroad station connected to his hotel by a short walking bridge. According to Ms. Smith, Cookâs Springs Hotel, also known as Cooks Springs Hotel, Cook Springs Hotel or Mountain View Hotel, was considered