Jasper Jeremiah Brooks (1847-1932) married Falba Walters Smith. Jasper J. Brooks was the son of John J. Brooks and Nancy Ann Garrett who were living in Pike County, Alabama in 1851. Jasper Jeremiah Brooks was born in Macon County Georgia. He came toTexas from Thomasville, Georgia around 1882 and settled east of Grapeland. He and Falbe Walters Smith had nine children: Nancy Isabel, Robert, David, Johnny, Isaac, Lelious, Mary, Martha (Mattie) and Lydia. Falba died in 1885 and he married Rebecca Parker in 1886. There were nine children born during this marriage but only four lived beyond childhood. They were Benjamin Riley, Edgar, Tommy, and Leon. Jasper J. Brooks moved to Grapeland around 1905.

His home was located on College Street where the Larkin house now stands. He owned several blocks of land on the east side of the railroad track. He built the buildings where the Parts Store, Wilma’s Custom Shop and the buildings that were torn down adjoining Wilma’s Shop. The bricks used in the construction of these buildings were made by his sons in a brickyard east of Grapeland. Prior to the construction of these buildings in 1905-1910, J. J. Brooks was in the general merchandise business on the west side of town. His dry goods store was located on site of the Kennedy building, block 2, lot 9. In the early 1900s, he also owned and operated a cotton gin located near the present site of the Methodist Church. J. J. Brooks was also an ordained minister of the Primitive Baptist Church. Ben Brooks was the only one of J. J. Brooks’s children who lived in the city of Grapeland for any length of time after reaching adulthood.