Hotels & Hospitality

Hotels and Hospitality. . For more than 100 years, hotels in the Downtown Historic District served a variety of roles. For weary travellers, hotels offered food and shelter. For traveling vendors, rentable showrooms provided a central location to display their wares. For area residents, hotels with their accompanying restaurants, dining halls, and coffee shops offered a spot to catch up on the latest news or host a special event or party., The Hayes House was the oldest hotel in Hodgenville, built in the later-half of the 1800s. It was located on the corner now occupied by Lincoln National Bank. In 1912, Farmers Bank constructed a new building on this site that would also house the post office, numerous businesses, and The Lynn Hotel that remained in operation until 1965., This quadrant of the town square has hosted businesses including a jewelry store, law office, hardware store, grocery, department store, bowling alley, utility office, furniture store, senior center, café, car dealership, and more. Renovations, building projects, and expansions continue to transform downtown., Over the years many businesses have occupied the site of the Hazle building. Originally a saloon, a 1914 vote outlawed liquor sales in LaRue County. A restaurant operated out of a parked streetcar after the saloon was torn down in 1916., Marshall O'Bryan built the current structure as a hotel and restaurant. He later sold it to Tommy Hazle who operated the businesses until 1960. By the 1980s, most of the remaining hotels/motels in the area had closed., In recent years, there has been a resurgence in overnight lodging with the opening of an RV Park and renovated motel near Lincoln's Birthplace, and accommodations accessible via online booking sites like AirBnB, Vrbo, and Harvest Hosts., (captions) , Lynn Hotel - Hodgenville, KY The Lynn Hotel welcomed guests downtown for more than half a century. This quadrant of the square has housed numerous businesses since Hodgenville's founding in 1818. Courtesy JM Mercer, The 1954 Junior-Senior Banquet at The Lynn Hotel featured a menu inspired by popular songs like "Stardust" and courses from the Waldorf-Astoria. The hotel shared space with Lincoln National Bank until its closure in 1965. The hotel rooms now serve as storage for the bank that opened in 1930. Courtesy JM Mercer, Lincoln Memorial Motel Prior to the opening of Interstate 65, overnight accommodations like the Lincoln Memorial Motel and Lincoln Stone Camp (inset picture) were plentiful in smaller communities along the old state highways. Courtesy The Henry Ford Museum, O'Bryan's European Hotel featured "reasonable rates, meals at all hours, and special chicken dinners" in the 1920s-30s. The building was then purchased by Tommy Hazle whose name still adorns the building. Courtesy Howard Sandidge, Content from The Lincoln Museum Collection