
Pope's Tavern filled with heavy hearts during the Civil War. Andrew Jackson kicked the mud off his boots there. Homesick soldiers died in hospital beds there. Sweaty horses, stagecoaches, travelers who'd fought underbrush, pock-marked roads, and fear of assault pulled in for a night's rest there.
It was a time when all men ages 16 to 60 were ordered to volunteer for battle. The wealthy were wanting for bread, and salt was so rare that people boiled the dirt from smokehouse floors to get it. Union and Confederate hands wrenched the city from each other 40 times. Though Florence was hard-hit, scarred, and bruised by the Civil War, many historic places still stand, preserved for your tour-like Pope's Tavern & Museum filled with antiquities, relics, and stories.
One of the area's oldest buildings-once a stagecoach stop, tavern and inn, hospital and command center for both Northern and Southern armies-the museum houses a wealth of local and Civil War history. A rare Kennedy Long Rifle, a Confederate Colonel's uniform, a vertically strung piano-one of only four ever made.
Frontier Days Celebration is held annually the first weekend of June on the grounds of Pope's Tavern. The event includes re-enactments and exhibits of the 1800's daily life such as blacksmiting, spinning, weaving, pottery making and period music. Admission is free.