History

Lewisburg was formally established in 1782 and named after Andrew Lewis. In 1774, Colonial Andrew Lewis received orders from Governor Dunmore of Virginia to stand against the American Indian forces attacking the Greenbrier Valley. This led to the Battle of Point Pleasant which the Sixtieth Congress of the United States in 1908 declared as the official first battle of the American Revolution.

During the Civil War, a number of battles were fought in and around Lewisburg. Several of the present buildings in town were used as a hospitals and barracks by both sides. Bullet marks can still be seen in some today. The Virginia Supreme Court library, located in Lewisburg and now the Greenbrier County Library, was used as a hospital and has preserved a section of wall with soldiers' graffiti.

You can visit the battlefields or spend the day at a museum. Make sure to stop by The Greenbrier for the Bunker Tour. Planned during the Eisenhower administration, the government built a secret government relocation facility under the resort during the Cold War specifically designed to accommodate the U.S. Senate and House of representatives, in the event of nuclear war. The secrecy of the location, its construction, and its maintenance was kept a secret even to the townspeople living amongst it, until the Washington Post exposed the facility, publishing a story about its whereabouts in May 1992.