Eagle Tavern

Eagle Tavern, or Hotel, was the center of social and political life in Watkinsville for more than a hundred years. It was saved from destruction in 1934 by Lanier Richardson Billups of Decatur, Georgia, who deeded it to the State in 1956. The oldest section of the building, which is of the "Plain Style," has been restored. It has two rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs. Separate doors lead into the two rooms on the first floor. One door enters the tavern, the other a store or trading area. This part of the Tavern was built in the first decades of the 1800s when Watkinsville was a growing frontier town, the County Seat of original Clarke County, and the crossroads of travel northward from Madison and Greensboro. In 1836 Richard C. Richardson bought and, over a period of years, made additions to the original tavern, stage-stop, and store. Having removed these additions, restored the earliest section, and installed appropriate furnishings and exhibits, the Georgia Historical Commission presents Eagle Tavern as a museum devoted to the pre-Civil War, pre-railroad era when wagon and stage travel was at its height.