Situated near the intersection of the Huntsville Road and Wire Road, Elkhorn Tavern is one of my favorite places at the Pea Ridge National Military Park. Every time I visit the park, I have to take a photograph of Elkhorn Tavern. Why I feel compelled to do this is anyone’s guess but maybe it speaks to the photogenic nature of the old tavern. Actually, the structure that stood during the battle burned in 1863, but Mr. Joseph Cox rebuilt the tavern in the 1880s closely modeling it after the wartime structure. The current tavern is a reconstruction of the 1880s era building.
Soldiers in Colonel Henry Little’s Missouri Brigade saw this view of the tavern while advancing along the Wire Road.
The tavern as viewed from the Huntsville Road:
And one final photograph of the old tavern. Note the set of antlers on top of the building. Union Colonel Eugene Carr took the original antlers as a souvenir, but returned them when the tavern was rebuilt in the 1880s. At some point, the antlers again were liberated or loaned out and their current home is uncertain.
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