Bath was platted in 1864. The community of Bath was listed as a newly-organized
census-designated place for the
2010 census, meaning it now has officially defined boundaries and population statistics for the first time. American
supercentenarian Irene Dunham was born in Bath.
Bath School disaster On May 18, 1927, in what became known as the Bath School disaster,
Andrew Kehoe, a farmer and local school board member angry over losing an election for
town clerk and under notice for
foreclosure, killed his wife, detonated bombs in his house and farm buildings, and at the same time set off a bomb in the consolidated school. He drove to the
school in a truck rigged with more explosives, which he detonated next to the school superintendent. In all, Kehoe killed 44 people, 38 of them children, and himself, in the worst school mass murder in U.S. history. Only half of the of explosives set under the school went off, probably greatly lowering the death toll. Thirty-eight of the 314 students, three teachers, the superintendent, the postmaster, and a local farmer assisting at the scene were killed. Most of the deceased were students from second to sixth grade. Fifty-eight others were injured. ==Geography==