Wilson County Courthouses

Lebanon's square sits on water. Commissioners chose the site in 1801 for its reliable supply, at the fork of two creeks, and the town was laid out in 1802 around a public square. At least one creek still runs beneath the asphalt, and the square has flooded. The blocks around the courthouse lot were listed on the National Register in 1999 as the Lebanon Commercial Historic District, 43 contributing buildings laid out on the Philadelphia square plan, an example of a late nineteenth and early twentieth century commercial center.

What the plaque says

Wilson County Courthouses The first courthouse stood on the west side of the public square. The second was located in the center of the square. In 1848 the third, designed by William Strickland, was erected on this site which was Lot No.2 (SW) of the Lebanon town lot plan of 1802. Used from 1854 until 1968, this building was replaced by a fourth when a new courthouse was built elsewhere.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wynnewood State Historic Site — 13 mi
  A National Historic Landmark log inn at the Bledsoe's Lick springs, beside a Mississippian mound center and tied to the domestic slave trade.
• Andrew Jackson's Hermitage — 18 mi
  Andrew Jackson's cotton plantation east of Nashville, where visitors can walk to the quarters, Alfred's Cabin and the Enslaved Cemetery as well as the mansion.
• Stones River National Battlefield — 24 mi
  The Murfreesboro battlefield of December 1862, with a national cemetery built by Black soldiers, a Trail of Tears route and the story of the freedmen's settlement called Cemetery.
• Red Boiling Springs — 33 mi
  A Macon County spa town built around red sulphur springs, with five kinds of mineral water, red-painted pumps and the surviving hotels of a resort that once held more than a dozen.

More markers nearby

• Battle of Lebanon — steps away
• Lebanon Post Office — steps away
• Pickett Chapel / Civil Rights — steps away
• Robert Looney Caruthers — 0.2 mi