Hagan's Tavern on the National Road stood in sharp contrast to its quiet modern atmosphere, having once been a rowdy gathering place where neighborhood men met on Saturdays and public days to race horses, fight chickens, drink bad whiskey, and black each others eyes. It also served as a political stomping ground where cooping commonly occurred, with politicians luring poor white voters to the inn, feeding them well, providing poker cards, keeping the whiskey flowing, and then quickly taking them to cast their ballots. The place belonged to a longer roadside tradition in western Maryland that reached back to Braddock's Road, when General Braddock passed through a region he regarded as almost uninhabited except for Indian traders, and when rough log predecessors of taverns like this one functioned as trading posts and crude lodgings where travelers endured crowded, unsafe conditions.