Historic Dinner

Jill's Journal: After finally parking the fifth wheel in the disconcerting campground, we were famished and decided to take advantage of what Bardstown has to offer. Bardstown, by the way, was established as a city in 1780 and is Kentucky’s second-oldest city. It’s frequently described as the “quintessential small, southern town.” It’s also self-proclaimed as the “Bourbon Capital of the World” as several major bourbon distilleries are located right here. Apparently there’s even a bourbon trolley that takes visitors from one distillery to the next for tastings and tours! That sounds like fun, but won’t be anything we partake in with small children. :)

Tonight we ate at the Old Talbott Tavern, which was fascinating and worth the trip all on its own. The stone building was built in 1779, was used pivotally in the Revolutionary War by General George Rogers Clark to wrest control of the Northwest Territory from Britain, and has been in continuous operation as a restaurant and inn for the 231 years since. We ate in the same room as the travelers of so long ago! And what travelers they were…everyone from Lewis and Clark to Abraham Lincoln as a child to Jesse James to General George Patton. The meal was way too expensive but worth it just for the cool history factor (and the burgoo – Kentucky roadkill stew – was yummy).

We also snuck upstairs to the rooms above the restaurant to see the inn, now a five-bedroom bed and breakfast, where all the aforementioned travelers and many more also stayed. If we’ve ever in Bardstown without a fifth wheel at a disconcerting angle, we’ll definitely be staying there!

One of the more fascinating rooms has a mural painted by one of the entourage of King Louis Phillippe of France when he stayed at the Tavern for a time during his exile in the late 1700s. Bullet holes now pepper the mural. Decades after King Louis Phillippe, outlaw Jesse James stayed in the same room. Legend has it that he woke up after a rough night of drinking and thought the birds in the mural were real. He unloaded more than a dozen bullets right into the plaster and they remain today.