Blue Licks Springs was a resort on the Licking River centered around a mineral spring. The largest hotel, the Arlington, with over 300 rooms, burned in 1862. Several other hotels in the area operated into the early twentieth century. The spring stopped flowing in 1896.
Pleasant Hill, or Shakertown, was a community formed in the early nineteenth century and was declining in 1898. In 1896 what was called the East Family of the Shakers dissolved and its remaining members moved to the Centre Family nearby. The Shaker Hotel, later the Shakertown Inn, opened in what had been the East Family dwelling. It was managed by Sister Jane Sutton, who died in 1912. She had been a deacon, elder, and trustee of the community.