Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: Fall 2004 Volume 41 Number 4, Page 140

Then... & Now
General Jackson Inn

Page 140

An old stagecoach inn, the General Jackson Inn, once stood where the large red brick RE/MAX Main Line real estate office, pictured below, is in Paoli at 49 E. Lancaster Avenue. It is on the north side of Lancaster Avenue across from where Chestnut Road intersects from the south. In the 1790s Lancaster Avenue was the Lancaster Turnpike which, by the 1820s, had 61 inns and taverns along the 66 miles through the area west of Philadelphia.

CORRECTION: In Vol. 42 No. 1, it was noted that the location of the former General Jackson Inn had been incorrectly described in this article. It actually stood one building to the east at the present day address of 61 East Lancaster Avenue.

The major stagecoach inns in the Paoli area were, from east to west, the General Jackson, the Paoli at approximately where the current Paoli Post Office is, and the General Warren still in business at the original site on Old Lancaster Highway in Malvern.

The General Jackson began in 1818 when Henry Hamm was granted its first license. Between 1822 and 1830 the local Paoli Farmers Lodge #183 of Free and Accepted Masons met on the second floor. Early in the 1830s the innkeeper became Randall Evans, brother of Joshua Evans, Jr. innkeeper at the Paoli Inn, creating intense rivalry between the two brothers who ran very successful stagecoach inns less than one mile from each other. During World War I the Paoli branch of the American Red Cross occupied the building. In 1918 they provided a canteen, reading room, and showers at this location for Marines stationed at Camp Fuller north of Paoli on Cedar Hollow Road. During the influenza outbreak of 1919-1920 they operated a hospital here. Their lease expired in 1929.

After that the building, very little changed from its original appearance, was the very popular Windmill Tea Room, pictured above. After that, until a fire in 1958, a succession of stores did business in the building: Ryner's music shop, a dress shop, Rubinstein's stationery store, and a print shop. After the fire, a stone building was constructed on the site housing a fur shop and bridal salon.