Cross Keys Tavern, U.S. Route 60, Shelbyville

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About six.miles from Shslhyville, Shelby County, Kentucky, on U. S. Ko. 60. Owner or Sarah B. Tinsley custodian; Address: Shelbyville, Shelby County, Kentucky Date built: (approx) Architect or builder: Present condition: Excellent ffow p^oi'JHejs Number of stories: Two stories Material used Foundation: Native stone* in construction: Exterior walls: Original part of logs, now covered with weatherboards and plastered inside. Subsequent addi- tions: frame, woatherboarded and plastered inside. Inter?or partitions: Frame, plastered . "Floors: Wor>d, random width ash and yellow pine. Roof: Prawe construction, covered with wood shingles. Description: "Cross Kays Tavern11 is amonp the finest architectural of the early inn buildings extant in and historical Kentucky.

The following is quoted from Geo, L, Willis1 History of Shelby County, Kentucky* "in the year they (Adam and Mary Pulton Middleton) came with the dawn of the century to Kentucky, settled in a little hut, near where the # house that figures herein is located, and he for a time pliec his calling, that of a blacksmith. The stream of travelers 2HA0S KYh who poured down the old dirt 'State Road', suggested to '" young Middleton the idea of a tavern, and he bought the log structure tbat had served as such before, from a man across the road, hunp up two immense brass keys on a tree at the roadside and called his inn the 'Gross Keys Tavern'.

" & It was an historic inn with, an historic bar, an historic table of Rood things, a cheerful landlord-, a roomy ham end barnyard, and continued so until the State Pike was built end even rumors of war began". (Published In Kentucky Progress Magazine, Fall, Vol. VI, No, 1, page 27) It is estimated that the "Cross Keys Tavern" sheltered ten thousand travelers between the years and that they represented every State of the Union east of the Missisnippi River, After the death of the pioneer, Adam Middloton, two of his sons stayed at the old tavern. They married sisters and lived as one family for fifty yearn, "Cross Keys Tavern" 5.p now owned and operated by lira. Sarah B. Tinsley and her two daughters as a fashionable hostelry, still retaining the atmosphere of the colonial days.