Rocky Springs Historic Site

• Early travelers called the area "the Rocky Spring," and settlement began in the late 1790s and continued until about 1860.
• Trades here included carpenters, wheelwrights, a well digger, cabinet makers, a cotton-gin maker, and blacksmiths.
• By the mid-1800s the community had a church, post office, Masonic Lodge, and possibly a school.
• The Civil War damaged the area, and yellow fever struck in 1878; an account from 1873 recorded 180 cases and 43 deaths.
• Boll weevils devastated cotton in the early 1900s, the population declined, and the last store closed during the 1930s.
• The nearby spring no longer flows.

The survivors listed by the Park Service are the church and cemetery, two rusting safes, and several abandoned cisterns. A short trail reaches two of the three original bank safes, and the third is displayed at an information center. This is a modest remains-and-interpretation stop, so plan on reading the story and looking for traces rather than touring a town.

The adjacent Rocky Springs Campground has 22 first-come, first-served sites, with picnic tables, restrooms, potable water, and self-guiding walking trails through the old town site and spring. That campground is typically busiest in spring and fall, especially holiday weekends, which is worth knowing if you are counting on the surrounding area being uncrowded.