Belle's Tavern
KY 255, Park City, KYThe tavern began operation sometime during the late 1820s and was originally known as Three Forks. By 1822, William Belle owned and operated the tavern as a stagecoach stop on the Louisville to Nashville route and was also one of the first promoters of the Mammouth Cave area as a tourist attraction. By the 1840s the tavern was a great attraction and its reputation was known in America and Europe. Among celebrities who were reputed to have been guests at the tavern were Henry Clay, Thomas Marshall, Jenny Lind, and King Edward VII of England, when he was Prince of Wales.
The original brick tavern burned in the late 1850s, after Belle's death, and construction on the stone inn was begun by his grandson, William F. Belle, and Major George Proctor, who married Belle's widow. Stone was quarried about three-four miles from Park City.
Construction was terminated by the severe depression under President Grover Cleveland in the 1890s and the building was never completed.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.