The above left photo shows the springhouse behind Tusculum's Doak House Museum as it appeared last August shortly after floodwaters knocked it off its foundation. The photo just below it shows Dr. Robert Davis at work inside the springhouse earlier this month, repairing the foundation after using a combination of jacks, skids, a "come-along," and lubricating soap to get the springhouse back on its foundations. In the larger photo at right, Davis pauses at the rear of the repaired springhouse while doing some final cleanup on the project this week. (Tusculum College photos)

On Aug. 4 of 2001, as floodwaters swept across Greene County in one of the worst widespread floods in recent history, the old springhouse that stands behind the historic Doak House Museum at Tusculum College was washed off its foundation, and the foundation itself was partly destroyed.

When floodwaters receded, George Collins, who oversees Tusculum's museum program, inspected the damage and began looking for ways to get the foundation's stonework repaired and the sturdy, heavy springhouse set right again. He brought in contractors and began getting estimates.

The news wasn't good. Estimates for the work ranged into the thousands of dollars and would involve bringing in a sophisticated crane to lift the structure, which is a representation of the springhouse originally at the area in Tusculum's earliest days. Collins was told that some nearby trees would probably be damaged in the process.

Because of the prohibitive cost, the work had to be left undone through the 2001-2002 academic year. The damaged springhouse was closed to the public – and it was missed. Teacher evaluations of museum visits by their classes inevitably mentioned student disappointment at not being able to go into the springhouse, Collins said.

At this point, Bob Davis of the Milburnton community at Limestone enters the story. Officially at Tusculum he is Dr. Robert B. Davis, professor of biology. Among his peers, he is usually just called Bob, and some on the campus joke that he has been around Tusculum about as long as the Doak House itself. In fact he has been on the faculty since 1970, making him one of the longest-term Tusculum professors still on the job.

Davis happened to hear Collins talking about his predicament with the springhouse. He went down and took a look at the damage for himself.

Soon after, Collins and his associate at the museum, Cindy Lucas, returning from an off-campus museums conference, noticed a truck parked near the springhouse and went to investigate. They found the springhouse back on its foundation, and Bob Davis busily repairing the foundation stonework. What had supposedly only been achievable by use of an expensive crane and high-paid specialists had been done by Davis, all by himself, using a couple of common jacks, a "come-along," some wooden skids, his truck, and a little bit of Lux soap to make things slide along a little easier.

Total savings to the college: more than $7,000.

Making the whole affair even more economical was that much of the rock used to repair the foundation was recycled from a stone column that had stood at the one entrance to the campus until an errant truck demolished it last year. That column has since been rebuilt from newer stone.

Interestingly, the springhouse sits within yards of another Tusculum structure that benefited from Davis's handiwork: a metal stand and housing for a piece of delicate stormwater testing equipment installed at Tusculum this spring as a training tool for environmental science students. Davis prospected in a local scrapyard for three days, scrounged up some salvage materials, and constructed the stand and housing himself. The estimated savings for the college from that project was about $2,000.

When Davis designed the stand, he took a cue from the August 2001 flood and built the stand high so that future floodwaters would not reach the electronic parts of the equipment.

Why does a busy biology professor, who also raises beef cattle, undertake such helpful tasks on his own? The soft-spoken Davis said it has much to do with his raising. "I was raised on a farm, and when you work on a farm you figure out that if you want to get something done, you do it yourself," he said.

His 91-year-old father, who goes by H.L. or Horace, has always been "independent," Davis said, and instilled in his son the belief that "you can do pretty much what you want to."

Davis's work left the springhouse and its environs better than when he started. Noting a part of the spring bank that was prone to erode during flooding, Davis used some extra stone to wall it up and strengthen it. Finding the foundation not as strong as it should be at spots, he dug around part of its base until he struck bedrock, and poured a new footer going all the way to the bedrock. He also suggested to Collins that a hinged rear wall for the springhouse be considered, though this hasn't yet been installed. Such a wall could swing up if the house flooded again as it did last August, and allow the water to go out without carrying the house with it.

Davis did some final cleanup around the springhouse this week (June 24), and college maintenance personnel will soon cart away the excess stone. Thanks to Davis's work and persistence, the springhouse once again sits aright at a spot where, as Samuel W. Doak put it in the 1846 college catalog, "a bold fountain of pure and most salubrious water bursts, and a pearly stream rolls its sweet waters."