In Memphis, Rogers designed the Shelby County Courthouse, one of the city’s most impressive buildings.īrooks selected a site in Overton Park, and groundbreaking took place on the relatively small building - it measured only 90 by 100 feet - in 1914. In 1913, she hired New York architect James Gamble Rogers, who had established a national reputation for creating distinctive buildings on the campuses of Yale and Columbia universities. The first task was to select a designer, and here again money was apparently no concern. Within months of his death, it seems she simply wrote a check for $100,000 - an astonishing sum in those days - and got to work. When her husband passed away, Brooks quickly decided to create a memorial in his name. When he passed away in 1912 during a trip to Baltimore, the CA eulogized, “He was involved in innumerable good works for the city and for humanity, and his name and memory are held in deepest reverence by all who knew him.”
The Commercial Appeal called him “a man of generous impulse, ever ready to extend a helping hand in any direction.” In 1876, he was the first to donate funds to purchase the fountain in Court Square, among other civic contributions. He also served as vice president of First National Bank and was a charter member of the Cotton Exchange. After the Civil War, he teamed up with a partner to establish Brooks, Neely & Company, cotton factors and grocers with offices on Front Street, and became quite wealthy. Born in 1834 in Beverly, Ohio, he came to Memphis when he was 24 and took a job in an iron foundry, according to old city directories. The museum’s official name, when it opened in 1916, was Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, as a tribute to Samuel Hamilton Brooks.
Dear Vance: Who is - or was - the “Brooks” of Memphis Brooks Museum of Art? - R.H., Memphis.ĭear R.H.: It’s a good question, and I’m surprised it doesn’t come up more often.
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