Hohenwald means "high forest" in German, and the name isn't decoration — Swiss and German settlers put this town on one of the highest stretches of the Highland Rim in the late 1800s, and the woods still crowd right up to the edge of town.
Today it's the Lewis County seat and a proper small-town Saturday: antique and junk shops worth digging through, local diners and country cooking, and friendly people who'll talk your ear off about the river. It's the kind of downtown where you park once and wander.
Don't skip the Lewis County Museum of Natural History — a small-town museum with one of the largest exotic big-game collections in the South, plus local history from the Swiss colony days to the Elephant Sanctuary era. And the Elephant Discovery Center sits right downtown too.
Good To Know
- The name
- German for "high forest"
- Roots
- Swiss & German settlement, late 1800s
- Don't miss
- Lewis County Museum, Elephant Discovery Center
- From The Grove
- A few minutes up the road
★ Town And Country ★
Browse downtown in the morning, float the river in the afternoon — that's a Lewis County day done right.