Magnolia Springs is located at the headwaters of the
Magnolia River, which was originally called River de Lin, Cataract Creek, or River del Salto by local residents. The origins of the community date back to the 1700s with the plantations of French and British settlers lining Magnolia River and Weeks Bay. Cattle, fishing, and masonry were commonplace industries at the time. Later, the largest enterprise in the area was
turpentine distillation. These stills were burned by their owners in 1865 to prevent them from being captured when
Union soldiers began amassing in the area. One leaves "the
Old Spanish Trail at the eastern head of the Cochrane Bridge, and drives south through
Fairhope along
Mobile Bay. Ten or fifteen miles beyond is the pleasant little village of Magnolia Springs, and one is in the sandy Gulf Coast soil where these people have their farms and community life. They call themselves 'Creoles', and their white neighbors qualify the term by calling them '[expletive deleted] Creoles.' The question of Negro blood has long been a sensitive spot with the Creole population of Louisiana and other southern states, but in Baldwin County it means only one thing to the dominant white class: some degree of Negro extraction." "A stop at a little crossroads store where the young Creole clerk volunteered more information led us still farther into the intricacies of life among the Magnolia Springs Creoles. The clerk was a small man whose complexion had a hint of reddish brown, and he was one of the few men in the community who bore a French family name. He claimed to be the great-grandson of an officer in
Napoleon's Grande Armée. He had come to the Baldwin County community from across the bay. He gave as his reason the decay of the Creole community in
Mobile County, and stated that this disintegration was almost complete." In May 2006 residents voted 224–96 to approve incorporation. The election results were certified by Baldwin County Probate Judge Adrian Johns on June 29, 2006. Magnolia Springs recognizes this date as the town's anniversary. According to a
United States Postal Service historian, some Magnolia Springs citizens receive mail by boat on the only year-round postal river route in the United States. ==Demographics==