Boyd Tavern is only one of many historic buildings in and around Mecklenburg's county seat of Boydton. Only recently it has gone through a major restoration and is truly one of the coolest buildings in the county.
The original Tavern was built in 1785 by Richard Swepson, Jr. to offer accommodations for people visiting the county courthouse across the street. He sold the land and buildings to Alexander Boyd in 1794.
The county seat town of Boyd Town was commission in 1812.
The Tavern is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a designated Virginia Historic Landmark, as well as a Mecklenburg County Landmark.
The Tavern supplied rooms for a race track in the 1820s. During the 1850s, it served as a stagecoach depot on the Boydton-Petersburg Plank Road and was a mustering place for soldiers in the Confederacy in 1861.
I think we took this picture of the Boyd Tavern's restoration in progress in October 2000.
Here is an old picture of Boyd Tavern. It is from an old postcard that was colored by hand. The year is unknown, but that looks like a dirt road in front there, so it's probably from around the turn of the 20th century (circa early 1900s).