Appalachian Community Histories – Lebanon, Russell County: From a Temple of Justice to a Mountain Civic Center
The Russell County Courthouse stands on one of the highest points in Lebanon, its clock tower rising above the streets that spread outward from the center of town. That position is fitting. Lebanon did not gradually form around a crossroads, mill, mine, or railroad station. It was deliberately created around the courthouse.
The history of Lebanon is therefore inseparable from the history of Russell County government. Its streets were surveyed to serve a public purpose. Its first lots were sold to build a county seat. Lawyers, merchants, teachers, hotelkeepers, craftspeople, public officials, and families followed the court to the new community.
The town endured a devastating fire, the loss of irreplaceable public records, changes in agriculture and coal mining, and the economic uncertainty that affected much of Southwest Virginia. Yet Lebanon repeatedly rebuilt itself while remaining what its founders intended it to be, the civic center of Russell County.
Before Lebanon Became the County Seat
Russell County was formed from Washington County in 1786. The first county court convened at the home of William Robinson in the Castle’s Woods settlement, near present-day Castlewood. A permanent courthouse was later constructed near Dickensonville, where a stone courthouse completed around 1799 replaced an earlier log building destroyed by fire. That courthouse served Russell County until the county seat moved to Lebanon in 1818.
The Dickensonville location had been selected when Russell County was still much larger than it is today. As new counties were created and the population shifted, the old courthouse became inconvenient for many residents. People living in the eastern and northern parts of the remaining county faced difficult journeys across mountain roads and creeks whenever court was in session.
By 1816, a movement had begun to relocate the county seat. Petitions were circulated and presented to the Virginia General Assembly. Supporters argued that the courthouse should stand in a more central location where water was available and where the public could more easily conduct county business.
The campaign did not merely seek a new building. It sought to create an entirely new town.
A Temple of Justice in the Mountains
David Alexander and Andrew Cowan provided land for the proposed county seat. The deed required the construction of what it called a “Temple of Justice,” a phrase that revealed the ambitions behind the project. The courthouse was intended to be more than a practical meeting place. It was to represent law, order, and civic authority in a mountain county still developing its institutions. The conveyance is recorded in Russell County Deed Book 5, page 430.
Seven commissioners were appointed to oversee the creation of the town: Zachariah Fugate, Benjamin Johnson, Daniel Horton, David B. Alexander, H. Smith, Francis Browning, and James McFarlane. Their appointment appears in the same deed book on page 433.
On June 29, 1816, the commissioners surveyed a tract of approximately twenty acres. They divided it into thirty-eight lots and established the basic plan of the new county seat. Lots 37 and 38 were reserved for the courthouse. Lot 27 was set aside for the public spring, ensuring that residents, visitors, horses, and livestock had access to water.
The presence of a public spring was essential. Court days could bring people from distant farms and settlements into town, sometimes after hours of travel. Water was needed not only by residents but also by the crowds and animals that gathered whenever the county court convened.
Lebanon was therefore planned around three necessities: justice, commerce, and water.
The First Court at Lebanon
Construction of the courthouse proceeded during 1816 and 1817. On February 3, 1818, the commissioners reported that the building had been completed. The county court ordered that future sessions be held at the new seat.
The first court session in Lebanon convened on March 3, 1818. From that day forward, the movement of judges, lawyers, witnesses, defendants, jurors, petitioners, merchants, and spectators began shaping the town’s economy and identity. By March 4, 1819, thirty-four of the original town lots had been sold.
The Virginia General Assembly formally established Lebanon as a town in January 1819. It received a charter in 1831 and later became an incorporated town in 1873. According to the town’s official history, the name may have been inspired by the cedar trees growing in the area and by the biblical land of Lebanon, which was famous for its cedars.
Lebanon differed from many rural communities in Russell County. Instead of developing as a scattered collection of farms, it emerged as a planned center where people and services were concentrated. The courthouse attracted attorneys, physicians, merchants, laborers, innkeepers, craftsmen, and public officials. Commercial buildings gathered near the central intersection, while residences extended along Main Street and Church Street.
Court day became one of the most important events in the community. Residents came to file deeds, settle estates, obtain licenses, testify in disputes, pay taxes, hear criminal cases, conduct business, exchange news, and meet neighbors they might otherwise see only occasionally.
The courthouse gave Lebanon its purpose, but the people gathering around it gave the town its life.
A Small but Important County Town
Lebanon remained a relatively small community throughout much of the nineteenth century. Its importance came not from its population but from the institutions located there.
The town became the center of Russell County’s legal profession. Attorneys established offices near the courthouse, while clerks preserved deeds, wills, marriage records, judgments, estate settlements, tax records, and court orders. Hotels and taverns accommodated travelers who could not make the journey home after court adjourned. Stores served both residents and visitors arriving from surrounding farms.
Schools also appeared as the town developed. A male academy was established in 1850, followed by a female academy in 1851. The female academy continued operating until approximately 1890. Russell College, another institution primarily serving women, operated from 1893 until 1909. These schools reflected Lebanon’s growing role as an educational as well as governmental center.
The town’s early houses and surviving commercial buildings reveal this gradual development. The James P. Carroll House, later known as the Garrett House, dates to around 1832 and combines elements of Federal and Greek Revival architecture. It is one of the surviving reminders of Lebanon’s first generation as the county seat.
By 1904, the United States Geological Survey described Lebanon as the county seat of Russell County, with a population of 325 and an elevation of 2,131 feet. The entry was brief, but it captured the character of the community. Lebanon was a small mountain town occupying a position of influence far greater than its population might suggest.
The Fire of 1872
Disaster came to Lebanon on February 14, 1872, when a fire swept through the center of the community. The courthouse and jail were destroyed, along with the Planter’s House and other nearby buildings.
The destruction was both physical and historical. The fire consumed the first Russell County marriage register and most of the loose county papers accumulated before 1872. Deed books, court order books, wills, and other bound volumes survived in greater numbers, but many original petitions, certificates, correspondence files, and supporting documents disappeared permanently.
The surviving records of the Russell County Board of Supervisors reveal how local officials responded. Arrangements were made to keep county books and papers at the clerk’s house or in the Male Academy. Temporary offices were needed so that the business of government could continue. Officials appointed committees, discussed rebuilding plans, raised funds, selected contractors, and made decisions about materials.
Even the courthouse roof became a matter of public consideration. Officials eventually approved a tin roof instead of the originally planned wooden shingles, accepting the additional expense in exchange for better protection against another fire.
The loss of the courthouse did not end Lebanon’s role as the county seat. Instead, the town began rebuilding almost immediately.
The Courthouse That Rose from the Ashes
The present Russell County Courthouse was completed in 1874. Its builders incorporated columns that had survived the 1872 fire, physically joining the new structure to the courthouse that had stood before it.
The rebuilt courthouse was constructed of red brick and designed with a classical portico, arched openings, a cupola, and a clock tower. Its elevated location made it the visual center of Lebanon. From its position above the surrounding streets, the building announced the town’s continuing identity as the seat of justice and government.
Reconstruction changed more than the courthouse. Much of Lebanon’s commercial center was rebuilt after the fire, which is one reason many downtown buildings date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries rather than the town’s earliest decades.
The fire also reshaped the historical record. Researchers studying early Lebanon must often reconstruct events from surviving deed books, court order books, tax lists, legislative records, newspapers from neighboring communities, and private papers. The absence of the lost documents remains part of the town’s history. Silence in an archive can reveal the lasting consequences of a disaster just as clearly as the records that survived it.
Main Street, Church Street, and a Growing Professional Class
Lebanon’s rebuilding coincided with a period of architectural development. Brick commercial buildings appeared near the courthouse, while prominent residents constructed houses along Main Street and Church Street.
Italian immigrants who came to Southwest Virginia during the expansion of the railroad contributed to the region’s distinctive stonework. Dominick Cozzolino, an Italian-born stonemason, is credited with much of the stone construction completed in Lebanon during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Alderson Building, constructed in 1908 from rock-faced stone, is believed to be among the buildings associated with his work.
The Stephen B. Quillen House illustrates the expansion of residential Lebanon during this period. Builder Nathan W. Easterly constructed the house on Church Street in 1912 as a speculative venture. Attorney Stephen B. Quillen purchased it in 1918.
Quillen represented the professional class that grew around the courthouse. He practiced law for decades, served as mayor of Lebanon, acted as Commonwealth’s Attorney, participated in school and welfare administration, and remained involved in public affairs. His house stood in one of the residential neighborhoods that developed as lawyers, merchants, educators, and officials settled close to the center of county government.
The history of these buildings demonstrates that Lebanon was more than a courthouse surrounded by businesses. It became a community of families whose lives were tied to the legal, commercial, educational, and political responsibilities of the county seat.
Newspapers, Schools, and Community Memory
The Lebanon News began serving Russell County in the early 1880s and became one of the most valuable records of daily life in the town. Its pages documented elections, trials, businesses, church gatherings, school events, fires, accidents, military service, marriages, deaths, social visits, and changes in the local economy.
The newspaper gave permanence to events that might never have entered official government records. Advertisements revealed what merchants sold and how businesses presented themselves. Court reports recorded disputes and crimes. Obituaries preserved family relationships, occupations, religious affiliations, military service, and community reputations.
Schools remained important institutions. A high school building completed in 1940, now associated with Lebanon Middle School, reflected the community’s investment in public education. Its Colonial Revival design and substantial campus demonstrated how far local education had developed since the academies of the nineteenth century.
Other community records preserve parts of Lebanon’s history that formal county documents often overlook. Parent-Teacher Association minutes from 1928 through 1950 record educational concerns and local fundraising. Women’s club scrapbooks document civic projects and community improvement. Yearbooks preserve photographs of students, teachers, athletes, buildings, organizations, and local businesses.
The Russell County Public Library’s local history collections also contain newspapers, photographs, family materials, vital records, diaries, scrapbooks, yearbooks, and digitized issues of the Lebanon News from 1935 through 2000. These collections allow the history of Lebanon to be studied not only through its officials and prominent residents but also through the experiences of ordinary families.
A Mountain Song Preserved in Lebanon
One of Lebanon’s most unusual primary sources is not a deed, newspaper, or court order. It is a sound recording.
On August 11, 1932, traditional music collectors recorded “Groundhog” and “Seven Long Years” in Lebanon. The recording is now preserved by the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.
The recording offers a rare connection to the sound of Russell County’s oral culture. Songs such as these passed through families and communities long before recording equipment arrived in the mountains. They carried stories, humor, sorrow, courtship, memory, and entertainment from one generation to another.
Lebanon’s official records show how government operated. Its buildings show how the town grew. The surviving field recording preserves something equally important: how part of the community sounded.
Agriculture, Coal, and the County Seat Economy
Agriculture shaped Russell County from its earliest settlement, and Lebanon remained closely connected to the farms surrounding it. Farmers came to town to record deeds, pay taxes, purchase supplies, attend court, consult attorneys, borrow money, sell goods, and participate in county government.
Coal later became one of the region’s most influential industries. Although many mines were located outside Lebanon, the industry affected the town through employment, commerce, transportation, banking, legal work, and public revenue. Lebanon served as the governmental and professional center for a county whose economic fortunes were increasingly tied to coal.
The decline of coal employment during the late twentieth century placed severe pressure on the region. By 1988, Lebanon faced an unemployment rate of approximately 14 percent. Town and regional leaders began searching for ways to diversify the economy and prepare the community for industries less dependent on natural resource extraction.
That effort eventually included investments in transportation, telecommunications, education, industrial development, and broadband infrastructure. In 2006, CGI announced the establishment of an information technology delivery center in Lebanon. The project became a symbol of the town’s effort to move from an economy associated primarily with agriculture and coal toward one that also included technology and professional services.
The transition did not erase Lebanon’s past. Instead, it continued a pattern visible throughout the town’s history. Lebanon had been created because Russell County needed a central place for public business. Nearly two centuries later, the town was still using its position, institutions, and workforce to adapt to a changing regional economy.
The Records That Survived
Much of Lebanon’s early history remains buried in the surviving Russell County records. Deed Book 5 preserves the conveyance that made the town possible. Court order books document decisions about the courthouse, roads, licenses, appointments, taxes, and public buildings. Survey books may preserve the measurements of the original lots. Later deeds reveal how properties around Main Street, Church Street, and the courthouse changed hands.
Chancery cases contain testimony about land, businesses, estates, debts, marriages, and family disputes. Tax books identify property owners, merchants, professionals, livestock, personal property, and economic changes. Wills and estate inventories reveal what families owned and valued. Newspapers capture the language and concerns of the community in ways that official records rarely do.
The 1872 fire ensures that the record will never be complete. Yet what survived is extensive enough to reconstruct the town one deed, court order, newspaper column, photograph, and personal memory at a time.
Why Lebanon’s History Matters
Lebanon’s story is the history of a town created for a purpose.
Its founders selected land, appointed commissioners, marked thirty-eight lots, protected a public spring, and raised a courthouse that they described as a Temple of Justice. From that planned beginning grew a community of lawyers, merchants, teachers, farmers, craftspeople, public officials, miners, musicians, and families.
The courthouse fire of 1872 destroyed buildings and irreplaceable records, but it did not destroy the town. Lebanon rebuilt its courthouse, renewed its commercial center, expanded its schools, preserved its newspaper, and continued serving as the political heart of Russell County.
The history of Lebanon can be read in the columns that survived the fire, the stones laid by immigrant craftsmen, the houses of attorneys and merchants, the pages of the Lebanon News, the voices captured on a 1932 recording, and the courthouse clock still overlooking the town.
Lebanon began as twenty acres surrounding a place of justice. More than two centuries later, the courthouse remains at its center, and the history of Russell County continues to gather around it.
Sources & Further Reading
Russell County, Virginia. Deed Book 5, 1814–1817, 430, 433. Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, Lebanon, Virginia. Microfilm held by the Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA253
Russell County, Virginia. Law Order Book 5, 1813–1817. Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, Lebanon, Virginia. Microfilm held by the Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA253
Russell County, Virginia. Law Order Book 6, 1817–1822. Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, Lebanon, Virginia. Microfilm held by the Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA253
Russell County, Virginia. Surveyor’s Book 2, 1799–1908. Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, Lebanon, Virginia. Microfilm held by the Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA253
Russell County, Virginia. Deed Book 6, 1817–1824. Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, Lebanon, Virginia. Microfilm held by the Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA253
Russell County, Virginia. Board of Supervisors Order Book 1, 1871–1897. Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, Lebanon, Virginia. Microfilm held by the Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA253
Library of Virginia. “Russell County Chancery Causes, 1840–1960.” Chancery Records Index. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/available.asp
Library of Virginia. “Russell County Chancery Causes Now Available.” The UncommonWealth, June 11, 2010. https://uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov/blog/2010/06/11/russell-county-chancery-causes-now-available-2/
Virginia General Assembly. “Charter: Lebanon.” Code of Virginia. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/charters/lebanon/
Town of Lebanon. “History.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lebanonva.net/about-lebanon/history/
Russell County, Virginia. “History.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.russellcountyva.us/199/History
Russell County Circuit Court Clerk. “Online Records.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.russellcountyva.gov/270/Online-Records-SRA
Russell County Public Library. “Local History.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://russell.lib.va.us/local-history/
Virginia Folklore Society. “Virginia Folklore Society Records, MSS 9936.” Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=oai%2FUVA%2Frepositories_3_resources_779.xml
Virginia Folklore Society. “Groundhog; Seven Long Years.” Recorded in Lebanon, Russell County, Virginia, August 11, 1932. Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. https://avalon.lib.virginia.edu/catalog?f%5Bdate_sim%5D%5B%5D=1932&per_page=50
Tate, Leland Burdine. An Economic and Social Survey of Russell County. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1931. https://books.google.com/books/about/An_Economic_and_Social_Survey_of_Russell.html?id=GqbXAAAAMAAJ
Tate, Leland B. Lebanon: A Virginia Community. Blacksburg: Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station, 1943. https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?c=x&key=Virginia+–+Social+conditions&type=lcsubc
Trigg, Daniel. “History of Russell County.” In An Economic and Social Survey of Russell County, by Leland Burdine Tate. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1931. https://genealogytrails.com/vir/russell/historyofcounty.html
Gannett, Henry. A Gazetteer of Virginia. United States Geological Survey Bulletin 232. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0232/report.pdf
André, Elizabeth M., and William H. Moore. Comprehensive Survey Report: Survey of Architectural Resources in Russell County, Virginia. Richmond: Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 2009. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/pdf_files/SpecialCollections/RU-045_AH_survey_Russell_County_2009_WMCAR_report.pdf
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Old Russell County Courthouse.” Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places, 1973. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/083-0001/
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Stephen B. Quillen House: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. 2003. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/VLR_to_transfer/PDFNoms/252-5016_Quillen_House_2003_Final_Nomination.pdf
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Carter Hill.” Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/083-5012/
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Jessees Mill.” Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/083-5152-0001/
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Daugherty’s Cave Site and Breeding Site.” Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/083-0022/
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Daugherty’s Cave Site and Breeding Site: National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. 1976. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/VLR_to_transfer/PDFNoms/083-0022_Nomination_REDACTED.pdf
Society of Architectural Historians. “Russell County Courthouse.” SAH Archipedia. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-02-RU1
Virginia Association of Counties. “Visit Russell County and the Russell County Historic Courthouse.” April 28, 2025. https://www.vaco.org/county-connections/visit-russell-county-and-the-russell-county-historic-courthouse/
Author Note: Lebanon’s history begins with a deliberate act of community building, when Russell County created a new seat of justice around thirty-eight surveyed lots. I hope this article helps readers see the courthouse, streets, surviving records, and 1872 fire as parts of one continuing mountain story.