Tavern Park occupies Lot Number One of Petersburg's old town plan, laid out for Abraham Jones Jr. in December 1783. The property had a longer history than the formal plan. William Byrd II of Westover first owned the land, and William Pride purchased the lot in 1745 as Petersburg developed around tobacco inspection, river commerce, and roads linking the fall line of the Appomattox with plantations and Atlantic markets. A tavern likely arose here under Pride's enterprising ownership.

By the Revolutionary era the establishment was associated with operator James Durell and became known as Durell's Tavern. Taverns offered meals, drink, lodging, stables, news, and space for transactions. They served travelers of very different status: merchants, planters, laborers, couriers, soldiers, and people held in slavery. In a town built around warehouses and landings, a tavern was part of the communications and service network that turned river cargo and road traffic into local business.

Petersburg became a battlefield in 1781. British forces under William Phillips and Benedict Arnold moved from the James toward this important supply center, while Virginia militia under Baron von Steuben defended the approaches. The Battle of Blandford on April 25 unfolded east of town before the Americans withdrew across the Appomattox. A tavern at this location would have stood amid military movement, rumor, requisitions, and civilian uncertainty, although no discrete combat episode is documented inside the property.

After the war, Durell acquired ownership in 1791. That year Petersburg prepared to receive President George Washington during his southern tour. The tavern expected to entertain him on the second evening of his visit, but Washington rose at about three in the morning and departed north before the planned occasion. The anecdote links an ordinary hospitality business with the ceremonial travel of the new republic's president while also reminding us that schedules and surviving memories could be unpredictable.

Pride and Durell held interests not only in the tavern lot but also at the Upper Landing, or old stone warehouse, tying hospitality to commercial storage and the river. The tavern complex continued in that use through the 1820s. As Petersburg expanded, buildings changed or disappeared, and the surviving open space no longer conveys the dense mixture of lodging, animals, cargo, and conversation that would have characterized the site.

The park and marker preserve civilian infrastructure within a city often interpreted through battles. Taverns were places where public and private worlds met: strangers exchanged intelligence, officials arranged business, and military movements disrupted daily trade. Lot Number One also connects colonial landholding, the 1783 town plan, Washington's presidency, and Petersburg's commercial growth. Its history is not a single dramatic event but the sustained work of accommodating people and information at a strategic Virginia crossroads.