Built in 1836, the Buena Vista Tavern operated as an inn from 1849 to 1856 before becoming a private residence. In 1930 it returned to public use as a tourist camp, with cabins or cottages behind the old inn, and it later again served the public as a retail establishment. Inns and taverns were once common along the National Road, where travelers could expect accommodations about every ten miles. Stage houses stabled and exchanged stage horses while providing room and board for passengers, while drovers' inns were generally simpler frame structures on side streets of pike towns, parallel to the National Road, or on the outskirts of town where pens for livestock could be kept; the house and property across from the Buena Vista Tavern was used by drovers. In the 1930s the tavern offered rooms, camp, and cabins, with gas pumps adding convenience for automobile tourists. Early auto tourists often slept in farmers' fields using tents attached to their cars or small travel trailers, and public and private tourist camps developed in the 1910s and 1920s to serve growing numbers of overnight travelers. Cabin camps were the earliest lodging built specifically for National Road travelers, usually arranged in a row or crescent shape for nearby parking, while cottages were larger, more durable, and winterized for year-round use. Beginning in the 1940s, cottages were succeeded by motor courts and motels with rooms under a continuous roofline, and by the 1950s many motor courts and motels had added coffee shops and restaurants.