Dr. B.M. Brooks House in Bath Springs added to National Register
The Bath Springs home of Dr. Beauregard Martin Brooks was listed in the National Register on Sept. 3, 1992, under NRIS 92001074.
The Dr. B.M. Brooks House in Bath Springs was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on Sept. 3, 1992, under NRIS reference number 92001074. NPGallery identifies the property as Brooks, Dr. Beauregard Martin, House in Decatur County, Tennessee.
The listing ties the house to Dr. Beauregard Martin Brooks, who was born Dec. 31, 1861, in Wayne County near the Tennessee River. Local history says Brooks moved across the river to Decatur County and built the house in 1899, and he and his wife raised seven children there.
Bath Springs history gives the property a broader community context. The Historical Marker Database places the Dr. B.M. Brooks House in Bath Springs, and Decatur County historical material says the first school there was a log structure built during Civil War days just across from the present Brooks home. George Brooks taught at that school, putting the house at the center of two strands of local memory, health care and education.
The preservation value is practical as well as symbolic. The National Register is the nation’s official list of historic places, and federal historic preservation tax incentives can support substantial rehabilitation work on income-producing historic properties. National Register properties also have limited protection from adverse effects tied to federally assisted projects, which can matter when roads, public work or other federal involvement touch a historic site.
In Decatur County, that recognition is rare. A National Register directory lists just 6 places in the county, which makes the Brooks House one of a small group of properties carrying federal historic status. The record trail also gives the site a concrete geographic foothold along Tennessee Highway 114 and Clifton Ferry Road, the kind of location detail that helps residents place the house in the Bath Springs landscape.
If the house is allowed to decline, Decatur County would lose more than an old residence. It would lose a documented home linked to one of Bath Springs’ named physicians, a site connected to the community’s early school history, and one of the county’s few federally recognized historic landmarks.
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