This photo is of Dr. Marshall James Brooks Sr. in his dental office on East Hiram. It its day, this was a postcard to announce the office was open for business.
The influential Brooks family were well-known medical leaders in Atlanta. In the center is the father and dentist Dr. Marshall James Brooks Sr. with sons, left. Dr. Jesse and Dr. James Brooks.
At the Mark Epperson Chapter United States Daughters of 1812 held February 1, 2026, Flag Chairman Linda Henderson presented American Flag certificates to one individual and two businesses who have exhibited proper care and display of the Flag.Linda is pic
Modern day renovation work is underway for the first-floor corner office building on East Hiram. The second-floor bay window was once the dental office for Dr. Marshall James Brooks.
The bay window on the second floor was once part of the Brooks Building in downtown Atlanta. Here was the dental office for Dr. James Marshall Brooks Sr. Patients sat in the dental chair and looked out the window.
At least the view was great
Atlanta’s downtown building with its bay window on East Hiram holds a pleasant memory. It once was a locally famous dentist’s office.
Patients in a dental chair could look out through the window and see passers-by below. At the time, the building was the Brooks Building in the 100 block of East Hiram. The late Kathleen Brooks Verschoyle renovated the offices on the second floor that once held the professional services of her grandfather dentist Marshall James Brooks Sr. Dr. Brooks opened his office here in 1903 in the building that was one of the town’s first with an upstairs and downstairs. To get to the dental office, one walked up the outside wooden stairs at the back. Once inside, the patient would sit in the dental chair facing north. It gave penty of clear light for the doctor to see. The building had been owned by one of the town’s first settlers R. A. Gallaway and then town leader J. M. Hutchins before being acquired by Brooks. It was separate from the R. A. Miles pharmacy building at the time. Dr. Brooks’ wife was R. A. Miles’ daughter Ouida. Dr. Brooks stayed there until the family built Brooks Hospital, and he moved his dental offices there in the 1950s. Dr. Brooks had been an undergraduate of Vanderbilt University and graduate of the University of Louisville Dental School. “Both my grandad and his brother had come from Smithland,” Kathleen Verschoyle said. “How they became doctors coming up out of those woods at Smithland is amazing to me.”
Her grandfather was named Marshall James Brooks Sr. and then so would be her father, a brother and a nephew, Kathleen said.
It was Marshall James Brooks IV who had his offices on second floor.
Kathleen said she doesn’t recall if her grandfather could avoid dental pain, but she was always a bit scared of the dentist.
“If I had a loose tooth, my doctor dad would send me to granddad to pull it instead of him or his brother James (both of whom were medical doctors). Grandfather was a dear, sweet man, but when he put on the white jacket, I ran.”
She also recalls her grandfather was very hard-working.
“He would get up very early and milk his cows every morning, then take the milk into Ouida who would churn it,” she said. “Then, when the boys Jesse and James were little, they would take the butter and milk around in a cart to sell to people.”
Kathleen also remembers a favorite time with her grandfather.
“We had a spring out in back of the home. Grandfather had built some wood around it and had a dipper there, too. It as the highlight of my day to go out there, drink fresh water from the spring with that dipper and talk to him,” she recalls.