Spalding Hall is the long brick building on North Fifth Street, right beside the St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral, that began as St. Joseph College in 1826, the first Catholic college in Kentucky. It has since been a Civil War hospital, a boys’ prep school and, since 1984, the home of the free Oscar Getz Museum of Bourbon History. Its lawn hosts the Kentucky Bourbon Festival every September. Walk in any day of the week, see a still that may have belonged to George Washington, and spend an hour on two centuries of Bardstown in one building.
A college on the frontier
Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget wanted educated priests and an educated Catholic laity in a territory that had neither, and colleges were how he got them. St. Joseph College opened beside his new cathedral in 1826, and Wikipedia’s Spalding Hall article calls it the first Catholic college in Kentucky. Bardstown, already a law town, became a school town too.
The building you see was rebuilt in 1839 after a fire destroyed the first one, which is why sources give both dates. It is Federal in style, like much of downtown: long, symmetrical and brick, with rows of tall windows. Our historic district architecture guide explains what to look for.
Who was Spalding?
The hall is named for Martin John Spalding, a Kentuckian who studied at St. Thomas Seminary south of town from 1826, per his Wikipedia biography. He rose to become Bishop of Louisville and later Archbishop of Baltimore. The Spalding name runs all through Nelson County Catholic history; Catherine Spalding led the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth for 45 years, and the Civil War Museum’s founder is also a Spalding. For that wider story, see the Kentucky Holy Land.
Reading the building
Stand back on the lawn before you go in. The long facade and regular rows of windows are exactly what a college needed: classrooms and dormitory space filled with daylight, laid out as simply as possible. That practical plan is why the building adapted so easily to its later lives as a hospital ward, a prep school and a museum. Inside, look for the old chapel, now rented for weddings and events, and imagine the same rooms as a ward full of cots in October 1862.
Civil War hospital
In the fall of 1862, two armies moved through Bardstown on the road to Perryville, and the college building became a hospital. Wikipedia describes it as serving Union soldiers; the Getz Museum’s history says it treated both Union and Confederate wounded. Either way, the classrooms filled with the sick and wounded of the campaign that ended at Perryville. Our Civil War in Bardstown page covers the fighting, and the Civil War museums on Broadway are a short walk away.
St. Joe Prep and a famous graduate
From about 1911 to 1968 the building housed St. Joseph Preparatory School. Its best-known graduate is Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, born in Bardstown in 1922, who finished at St. Joe Prep in 1940 and later commanded at the Battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam; he co-wrote We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, per his Wikipedia biography. The Hal Moore Military Museum on Museum Row honors him. Spalding Hall was listed on the National Register on May 7, 1973.
The Getz Museum today
After the prep school closed, the building needed a new purpose, and bourbon supplied it. Oscar Getz, a Chicago spirits executive who bought the Tom Moore Distillery in Bardstown in 1944 and renamed it Barton, spent more than 50 years collecting whiskey memorabilia. His collection opened as a museum in Spalding Hall in 1984, and in 2023 it was renamed the Oscar Getz Museum of Bourbon History.
The museum’s website lists more than 5,000 artifacts. Highlights include Abraham Lincoln’s liquor license, Prohibition-era prescriptions for “medicinal” whiskey, moonshine stills and, per Wikipedia, “a still that quite possibly belonged to George Washington.” Exhibits cover the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, temperance and bourbon’s revival. It is compact and well labeled; plan 45 to 75 minutes. For a fuller rundown, see our Getz Museum guide.
Upstairs, the Bourbon Capital Academy teaches classes that begin with a museum tour. The old chapel is rented for weddings and events. Visit Bardstown still lists a separate Bardstown Historical Museum at this address, with Civil War and Stephen Foster material; call (502) 348-2999 to ask whether that collection is on display before you count on it.
Festival grounds
The Kentucky Bourbon Festival, a 21-and-over ticketed event since 2021, is held on the Spalding Hall grounds, and the festival office is in the building. The 2026 festival, the 35th, ran September 10 to 13; the 2027 dates are September 16 to 19, per the festival site. On festival weekend the lawn is fenced for ticket holders and nearby streets get busy, so plan museum visits for another day. The free World Championship Barrel Relay, where teams roll 500-pound barrels, is the part anyone can watch. See our Kentucky Bourbon Festival guide.
Visiting
The museum is at 114 N. Fifth St., two blocks from Court Square. Hours are Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4 p.m., and the site says they hold year-round; it closes Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Admission is free, and guided group tours are $3 per person. Families are welcome in the museum, since it is exhibits rather than tastings.
Who should go
Almost everyone. Bourbon fans get the Getz collection, history fans get two centuries of the Catholic frontier in one address, and families get a free, indoor hour that works well on a rainy or very hot day. The museum is about artifacts rather than tastings, so non-drinkers and under-21s can enjoy it fully. If you are pressed for time, combine it with the basilica next door; the two together take about 90 minutes. Weekday mornings are the quietest time, and Sunday afternoons work well after church traffic clears.
Where to stay nearby
Spalding Hall is two blocks from Court Square, so any downtown room works, from the historic inns on Stephen Foster Avenue to B&Bs on the side streets. On festival weekend, every room in town goes early; our guide to staying for the Bourbon Festival explains how far ahead to book. The rest of the year, a downtown room lets you walk to the museum, the basilica, dinner and a nightcap without moving the car.
Pair it with
Start at the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral next door, then tour the museum, then go downstairs: The Rickhouse restaurant occupies the basement of Spalding Hall. It is the rare lunch that lets you eat inside a building from the 1830s after reading about it.
