Pickett Springs flourished in the post-bellum South as a railroad destination and amusement park on part of the former William Harris plantation, Forest Farm, where Harris’s daughter Sarah had lived with her husband A. J. Pickett, Alabama’s first historian, until Pickett’s death in 1858. In the 1880s, the Western Railroad of Alabama opened Pickett Springs as the nearby community of Chisholm developed, and by September 1886 it was praised as the "best public resort." Four miles north of Montgomery, it drew citizens by train for entertainment and relaxation, with a dance pavilion, refreshment stand, bowling alley, shooting gallery, carousel, flying swing, billiard parlor, scenic car, and roller coaster; after 1902, street railway service also reached the area. In the early 20th century, the Salvation Army held fresh-air camps there for indigent people during the summers, but by World War I the place had lost much of its aura as automobiles and movies offered other diversions. During World War I, Camp Sheridan, an infantry training ground, supplanted the old park, and in the 1920s West Boylston Manufacturing opened a large cotton mill and residential village in the vicinity.