In the 1830s, the Chicago Road and the La Plaisance Bay Pike, both built atop Native American trails, met on the high ground of Cambridge Township, helping channel thousands of newcomers to southern Michigan as part of a national westward movement. In 1832, Calvin Snell established a tavern at the new junction, and in 1843 sold it to Sylvester and Lucy Walker of Cooperstown, New York, who prospered by serving road travelers. In 1853 they built a brick tavern across the road, and the taverns became community gathering places where people socialized, collected mail from postmaster Walker, and sometimes held church services. The original tavern became a private home in 1865 when local stagecoach driver Francis A. Dewey bought it. In the 1920s, growing automobile tourism brought Detroiters and other travelers along U.S. 12 and M-50 into the Irish Hills, where the Walker Taverns offered food, shopping, and history. In 1922, Episcopal priest Frederick Hewitt purchased the two Walker Taverns to support his business ventures in antiques and chicken dinners, drawing on the nation's colonial nostalgia to create one of the area's oldest operating tourist attractions. The site also includes the original 1832 Walker Tavern, a reconstructed barn, and the 1929 Hewitt House. In 1926, U.S. 12 and M-50 were graded and paved, and in the 1960s engineers added left turn lanes and flattened U.S. 12 to improve traffic sightlines at the busy intersection.