View source for File:Cooper's Tavern or the (Swing Inn).jpg

== Summary ==
Long time Brunswick natives remember the brown building on the lower right as Cooper's Tavern or the "Swing Inn".

Cooper's Tavern was built on the Wenner farmland in the 1930s by grocer and farmer William B. Wenner. The establishment was run for years by Willie Cooper until his death in the 1950s. Wenner conceived the tavern on Petersville Road and later a pool hall across the street during the Jim Crow era because he felt local African-Americans needed their own meeting spots during a time when they were barred from "white's only" establishments in town.

The "Swing Inn", as it was better known to locals was always crowded, especially on weekends with cars lined up along Petersville Road and people spilling out of the tavern. Henry Beard bought Cooper's Tavern from Eleanor Wenner Bissett's estate in the late 1960s and operated it until it closed in the 1980s.

(November 2011)

Joan Hale: I remember seeing the cars along the road, and the term "swing in and stagger out" too!

[[Category:Smoketown African American Heritage]]