With the first portion being built in 1786, what is now known as the Entler Hotel has worn many hats.
A decade earlier, the empty lot served as a drill area for troops preparing to join George Washington on the battlefield near Boston. The building has been home to a hotel, grocery store, tavern, Civil War hospital, dormitory and storage facility over the years. A portion of the hotel was destroyed in 1912 in the biggest fire of Shepherdstown’s history but was quickly rebuilt. The property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and restoration of the building began in 1979 after the citizens of the town rallied to save the Entler from razing.
Today, the rooms that house the Historic Shepherdstown Museum recapture the feeling of a small town hotel prior to the Civil War complete with the original guest register. Period furnishings and locally-made clocks and pottery grace two rooms on the main floor. The second floor features a traveler’s room and a Victorian sitting room. The museum houses many Civil War and Shepherdstown antiques, including a 1905 mail wagon and the half-scale replica of James Rumsey’s steamboat in the small barn in the garden.
Location: 129 East German Street, Shepherdstown
For More Information: 304-876-0910
www.HistoricShepherdstown.com
The remains of the Mecklenburg Tobacco Warehouse, built around 1789, may be the oldest stone tobacco facility in present-day West Virginia. It is the only standing commercial building on the once busy Shepherdstown riverfront. Sometime after tobacco ceased to be important, the warehouse served as a storage center for corn, wheat and other commodities. Boats transported goods to the Shepherdstown River Lock of the C&O Canal. When the water level of the Potomac River is low, remnants of the warehouse’s stone wharf wall are still visible.
Native Americans camped seasonally along the shores of the Pack Horse Ford section of the Potomac before colonial settlers arrived to claim the land. They called it “Cohogoroota” for the sound of the wild goose.
Location: End of Princess Street, Shepherdstown
For More Information: 304-876-2786 • www.ShepherdstownRiverfront.org
“Whereas . . . the establishment of inspection of tobacco on the lands of Abraham Shepherd, near
the town of Mecklenburg, on Potowmack river in the county of Berkeley, would be of public utility
and the proprietor of the land is willing to erect the houses necessary for that purpose at his expense:
Be it enacted . . . to be known by the name of Mecklenburg Warehouse.”
Virginia General Assembly — November 19, 1788.
