According to research by Dr. Ken Kirby of Samford University, the name refers to the distance from a pioneer-era creek crossing in Center Point to the old Ruhama Academy boarding school, in what is now South East Lake.

The log cabin school, closed during the civil war, was built on Second Avenue South and 80th Street in Birmingham. Five miles was the distance pioneers had to drive their wagons from a watering hole, a spring at Spring Lake, to the boarding school.