Lebanon, Tennessee: Cedar Town and Law School City

Lebanon was incorporated in eighteen oh one and named for the biblical land of cedars because of the red cedar forests that covered the surrounding hills. The town grew steadily as a market center in Wilson County, but its lasting national significance came from Cumberland University, founded here in eighteen forty-two under the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In eighteen forty-seven it added a law school, the first in Tennessee.

Its most famous graduate is Cordell Hull, Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of State for eleven years and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in nineteen forty-five for his role in founding the United Nations. Its alumni include more than eighty members of Congress. The campus was occupied and partially damaged during the Civil War but survived.