Gadsby's Tavern is a complex of historic buildings at 134 and 138 North Royal Street at the corner of Cameron Street in the Old Town district of Alexandria, Virginia. The complex includes a c.1785 tavern, the 1792 City Tavern and Hotel, and an 1878 hotel addition. The taverns were a central part of the social, economic, political, and educational life of the city of Alexandria at the time. Currently, the complex is home to Gadsby's Tavern Restaurant, American Legion Post 24, and Gadsby's Tavern Museum, a cultural history museum. The museum houses exhibits of early American life in Virginia, and the restaurant operates in the original 1792 City Tavern dining room, serving a mixture of period and modern foods. The complex was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. Tavern history Gadsby's Tavern consists of two buildings: one is the tavern, built around 1785, and the other is the 1792 City Hotel. John Gadsby leased and operated them from 1796 to 1808, and it is his name attached to the location. Early history Gadsby's Tavern was not the first tavern on its lot. Between 1749 and 1752, Charles and Anne Mason had begun a tavern business they called Mason's Ordinary. In the 1770s, Mary Hawkins opened a tavern on the lot around the corner from what is now the Gadsby's Tavern Museum. The original lot where Hawkin's tavern sat extended from the southwest corner of Royal and Cameron streets to about mid-block on both streets. In 1778, the plot was subdivided, and Edward Owens purchased the lot on the corner of the two streets. With the end of the Revolutionary War, and the booming economy that followed, Marylander John Wise purchased the plot in 1782 from Owens, and built the existing Georgian-style tavern ca. 1785, and the Federal City Tavern in 1792. Englishman Gadsby leased the City Tavern, the most prominent tavern in Alexandria in 1796. He renewed the lease in 1802 to include the smaller 1785 tavern from Wise, and operated both until 1808 when he moved to Baltimore, Maryland. John Wise died in 1815, and with his death the buildings went through different hands, being run as a hotel, lawyers' offices, and auction houses. It remained a hotel during the American Civil War. In 1816, a 23-year-old woman succumbed to a disease at the city tavern