The Epperson Springs Hotel, built by local businessmen so that residents and visitors could bathe and soak in a mineral spring, stood here as part of the state's early resort culture, when physicians often promoted “taking the waters,” or hydrotherapy, and such resorts became known as much for social life as for alleged cures. Because of its prominent location near the Kentucky line, the resort became an enlistment center and a Confederate training camp in the autumn of 1861, known as Camp Jim Davis after the hotel proprietor. Companies B, C, D, and E of the 7th Cavalry Battalion, later designated the 22nd Barteau's Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, and Company E of the 9th Tennessee Cavalry were organized here. By the middle of the war, Federal forces controlled the area but faced constant harassment from regular and irregular Confederate units. In early May 1863, a detachment of the 11th Kentucky Infantry (US) passed Epperson Springs while pursuing what commanders called a Confederate gang, and Col. S. Pallance Love reported that the country was infested with a thieving party that had nearly devastated the area and stolen nearly all the good horses from citizens. Union units likely formed here were Companies E and F of the 1st Tennessee Mounted Infantry and Companies A and D of the 8th Tennessee Infantry, all of which included Macon County men. The Epperson Springs Hotel burned to the ground in 1926.