Sylvan Springs

Christopher Maloney, Auburn University
Sylvan Springs is located in Jefferson County in north central Alabama. It has a mayor/council form of government.
History
Sylvan Springs Community Center
The town arose in an area where a few families had settled in the 1880s and built the Old Grove Methodist Church. The town was first known as Hoagtown, for William T. Hogan, stepson of early settler Dudley Goolsby. The residents renamed it Sylvan Springs for a nearby source of fresh water. It was incorporated as Sylvan Springs on May 22, 1957. The town lies atop the Black Warrior Basin and deposits of coalbed methane and is surrounded by wells from which the valuable natural resource has been extracted since the early 1980s.
Demographics
According to 2016 Census estimates, Sylvan Springs recorded a population of 1,753. Of that number, 95.8 percent of respondents identified themselves as white, 3.4 percent as African American, 0.5 percent as Asian 0.3 percent as Hispanic, 0.2 percent as two or more races, and 0.1 percent as American Indian. The town's median household income was $57,102, and the per capita income was $25,984.
Employment
According to 2016 Census estimates, the workforce in Sylvan Springs was divided among the following industrial categories:
  • Educational services and health care and social assistance (23.1 percent)
  • Manufacturing (21.2 percent)
  • Retail trade (8.8 percent)
  • Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (8.2 percent)
  • Construction (7.8 percent)
  • Public administration (6.9 percent)
  • Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (6.1 percent)
  • Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (6.1 percent)
  • Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (5.0 percent)
  • Information (2.6 percent)
  • Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and extraction (2.2 percent)
  • Other services, except public administration (1.6 percent)
  • Wholesale trade (0.3 percent)
Education
Public education in Sylvan Springs is administered by the Jefferson County School System. There are no schools in the town itself.
Transportation
Located northwest of Birmingham, Sylvan Springs is accessed by State Highway 269. The town is fewer than 20 miles to the west of Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport.
Events and Places of Interest
Sylvan Springs has a community center adjacent to several baseball diamonds.
Published:  May 13, 2013   |   Last updated:  November 9, 2020