The mineral content of the water was thought to provide health benefits to drinkers, and the spring was named in reference to the legend of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León's search for the Fountain of Youth.

By the 1870s, there was a streetcar line extending from downtown to the spring, following a route that would later become Ponce de Leon Avenue, one of the city's busiest thoroughfares.

By the 1920s, the amusement park's popularity began to wane and the land was eventually sold to Sears, Roebuck and Co., who built their regional distribution and retail headquarters on the site.

[1] In the U.S. state of Georgia, there were eleven such mineral springs that had been commercially developed prior to the American Civil War, though many of those resorts were destroyed during that conflict.

[21] Around this same time, Richard Peters, a co-owner of the Atlanta Street Railway,[5] took notice of the increasing popularity of the spring and had a route created to the location.

[18][22][23] This route, a part of the railway's Nine-Mile Circle, was an extension of their Peachtree Street line and followed a path that would later become known as Ponce de Leon Avenue,[5] one of the most traveled thoroughfares in the city.

[8][18][25][5] By 1884, another rail company, the Gate City Street Railroad, had also established a line to take people from downtown to the spring.

[2] By this time, a bath house had also been built at the spring, and there were numerous vendors selling fruit and ice cream to the visitors.

Armistead's decision was met with resistance from the Atlanta Street Railway, whose management worried that customer frustration over the charge could hurt their business.

[5] The owners also brought in many other amusement rides and attractions similar to those found at the resort areas of Coney Island, New York, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, such as a ping pong parlor, a gravity railroad, a Ferris wheel, and a penny arcade, among others.

[5] Like with the spring area before it, this amusement park enforced a policy of racial segregation, only allowing African Americans entry if they were servants for white guests.

[5] This ballpark served as the home venue for the Atlanta Crackers, the city's Minor League Baseball team, who debuted at the park on May 23 of that year before 8,000 spectators.

[5] The ballpark would later also serve as the home venue for the Atlanta Black Crackers, the city's Negro league baseball team.

[5] Following its demolition, the area was converted into commercial real estate and is currently home to Midtown Place, an outdoor shopping mall.

[32] Also in the 2000s, a significant amount of land just south of Ponce City Market in what had previously been the spring area was converted into the Historic Fourth Ward Park, while the railroad right of way that ran next to the spring area has undergone redevelopment as part of the BeltLine, a series of shared-use paths and urban green spaces that surround the city.