Simp McGhee's - 725 Bank Street

On the west corner of Bank and LaFayette Streets, you’ll see Simp McGhee’s – a restaurant named after quite a character from Decatur’s history. Simp was a riverboat captain in the 1880’s who is renowned for having a beer-swilling pet pig for a drinking companion. His diversified Decatur holdings included a saloon here on Bank Street and possibly an interest in a house of ill repute. There are many stories about Simp, but the most famous is his relationship with Kate Lackner, known as “Miss Kate”. She was married and the mother of a young son when Simp met and fell in love with her. Simp and Kate never married, but it is believed he set her up in business in what was called a “gentleman’s sporting house.” It was said, too, that Miss Kate had the loveliest ladies in all of the Tennessee Valley. She paraded her girls up and down Bank Street on Sunday afternoons, first in horse-drawn carriages then in convertibles or “open automobiles.”