Illinois Landmarks Added to National Register of Historic Places

Bridges Tavern and Store Site

Buncombe vicinity, Johnson County

Between 1837 and 1839, over 10,000 Cherokee traveled along the “Trail of Tears,” as part of their forced emigration to the West.  Two Illinois properties associated with the trail’s history were listed in 2017. The John Bridges Tavern and Store site contains the archaeological remains of a nineteenth century tavern; a nineteenth century log building known as the “Wayside Store;” a spring that would have provided water for Cherokee travelers and their livestock; and, a series of post-1940 structures. Oral histories from the 1930s state that the Cherokee purchased supplies at the Bridges Site Wayside Store while traveling along the Trail of Tears.