A Divertimento for the Political 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. As is appropriate, it also had some rather ignoble episodes that burnished its notoriety.

For example, in 1871 a prominent local attorney, Clement L. Vallandigham, decided to engage in a dramatic …