Hilham is an unincorporated community in Overton County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The community is centered around the junction of Tennessee State Route 136 (which runs north-to-south) and Tennessee State Route 85 (which runs east-to-west). Although not a census-designated place, Hilham is part of a Zip Code Tabulation Area

ZIP Code Tabulation Area

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are statistical entities developed by the United States Census Bureau for tabulating summary statistics from Census 2000. This new entity was developed to overcome the difficulties in precisely defining the land area covered by each ZIP code...

 (38568) that covers most of rural northwest Overton County. As of the 2000 census, the population of this entire area was less than 2000.

Hilham was established in 1797 by an idealistic Dartmouth

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

 graduate named Moses Fisk (1759-1840), who believed the site was the geographic center of the United States

Geographic Center of the Contiguous United States

One of the locations claimed to be the Geographic Center of the Contiguous United States is pinpointed by a historical marker that is located within a small park near the town of Lebanon, Kansas. It is located at the intersection of AA Road and K-191, accessible by a turn-off from U.S...

 (at the time, the Mississippi River

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

 was still the nation's western boundary). Fisk laid out Hilham so that roads radiated out from the center of the community to the north, south, east and west, believing that Hilham would eventually be the ultimate crossroads of the new nation. In 1806, Fisk established one of the first female academies in the southeast at Hilham.

The 11000 acres (44.5 km²) Standing Stone State Park and Forest

Standing Stone State Park

Standing Stone State Park is a state park in Overton County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The park consists of along the shoreline of the man-made Standing Stone Lake...

is located just 5 miles (8 km) north of Hilham along TN-136.