A Divertimento for an Election Season: The Golden Lamb Inn

Lebanon, Ohio

This little-known inn in the middle of nowhere, the state’s oldest hotel still in operation, has played a remarkable role in the history of the United States. It also had some rather ignoble episodes that burnished its notoriety.

For example, in 1871 a prominent local attorney, Clement L. Vallandigham, was defending a man accused of murder. As the county…