Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Hilham, TN

Hilham is an unincorporated community in Overton County, Tennessee, that the Census Bureau delineates as a census-designated place (CDP), so it has no municipal government of its own.

Hilham was established in 1797 by Dartmouth graduate Moses Fisk (1759-1840), who believed the site was the geographic center of the United States, at a time when the Mississippi River was still the nation's western boundary.

Fisk platted Hilham so that roads radiated out from the center of the community to the north, south, east, and west, believing it would eventually become the ultimate crossroads of the new nation.

The name Hilham is a combination of "hill" and "hamlet," according to Larry Miller's Tennessee Place Names.

In 1806, Fisk established the Fisk Female Academy at Hilham, one of the first female academies in the Southeast; the academy had been chartered by the Tennessee General Assembly in 1805, and Fisk's house was later moved to Standing Stone State Park.

The community is centered around the junction of Tennessee State Route 136, which runs north to south, and Tennessee State Route 85, the Hilham Highway, which runs east to west.

The 11,000-acre Standing Stone State Park and Forest is located about five miles north of Hilham along State Route 136.

The 2020 census was the first to count Hilham as a separate place, and it recorded 338 residents in the CDP.

The 2020 census counted 141 households and 158 housing units in the Hilham CDP, and the median age of its residents was 48.7 years.

Hilham has its own post office and ZIP code, 38568, and its wider ZIP Code Tabulation Area covers most of rural northwestern Overton County and part of northeastern Jackson County.