Jacob Pruet’s Stand, a tavern on the Byler Road, was a popular stopping place in the 1830s and 1840s. The two story poplar log structure had four twenty-foot rooms on each floor. Located near a large spring, it earned a handsome profit because most of the hogs and cattle driven to South Alabama passed that way. Pruet was one of the Free State’s earliest and most colorful settlers. He purchased the land in 1825 from Richard McMahon, the first landowner in what became Winston County. Pruet was a veteran of the American Revolution and the War of 1812, as well as a planter, land speculator, tavern owner, investor in roads, and philanthropist.