Union Hotel Restaurant & Tavern

The Union Hotel stands as one of the oldest structures in Port Deposit, a narrow river town wedged between high granite cliffs and the east bank of the Susquehanna River in Cecil County, Maryland. Built of interlocking hemlock logs around 1790, the building originally functioned as a tavern and lodging house, serving the merchants, raftsmen, and seamen who worked the busy Susquehanna trade. By the mid-1800s the establishment had taken the name 'Union Hotel,' operated during that period by a member of the Gillespie family, also named James, who continued running it as a tavern and hotel.

Like many river-town establishments of its era, the building reportedly housed a brothel at one point in its history; local accounts say that operation closed not long after the construction crews building the nearby Conowingo Dam (completed 1928) left the area. Over the following decades the structure fell into decline, was covered with siding that concealed the original logs for roughly a century, and sat abandoned and vandalized through the 1970s.

In 1981 new owners reopened the building as a restaurant and tavern, restoring the name Union Hotel and removing siding to expose the original hemlock log construction. The restaurant has since operated as a destination dining spot known for prime rib and crab cakes, with staff often dressed in colonial-style attire that plays on the building's eighteenth-century origins.

The Union Hotel's longevity and largely intact log construction make it a notable example of an early Susquehanna river-trade tavern, and it has been featured repeatedly in regional coverage of historic Maryland eateries, including the Baltimore Sun.