Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee
Edmund Jennings was a Kentucky hunter who was among the first to find his way into this valley. Shepherd Kirby was one of the first settlers to move his family to the area after hearing about Edmund's find. Shepherd had suffered for years from eye infections. As the tale goes, one day Shepherd was hewing logs for the home he was building, when the pain in his eyes became so intense he quit working and went to the nearby spring to bathe his eyes. By the next morning, the misery and suffering from his eye infection had improved so much, he continued bathing his eyes daily with the spring water. Within a short while, his eye infection which had plagued him for life, disappeared. Talk of Shepherd Kirby's miraculous healing spread fast, and before long travelers seeking cures for every disease came by. When they returned to their homes, the pilgrims brought back new stories of their own personal healings, and the secondhand tales of the incredible healing of others. As the lure of the healing waters spread swiftly throughout the territory, more and more families began coming to the area, at first seeking the healing waters, and then moving to the town that sprung up around the healing waters. During the spring and only during certain times of the day, the new settlers noticed a red-tinted water bubbling up out of the ground. The red bubbling water looked like it was boiling, and shortly thereafter the little town once known as Salt Lick Creek, became known as "Red Boiling Springs."