Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Hallam, NE

Hallam is a village in southern Lancaster County, Nebraska, and part of the Lincoln metropolitan area.

Hallam was platted in 1892 when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad was extended to that point, on land sold by Frederick Schneider.

The village was meant to be called Hallau, after first landowner Jacob Schadd's hometown in Switzerland, but a transcription error at the post office recorded the name as Hallam, the same kind of error that changed Norfork into Norfolk.

By the early 1900s Hallam had a bank, a hardware store, a dry goods store, a shoe shop, a druggist, a livery barn, a doctor, and a telephone office.

In 1962 the Hallam Nuclear Power Facility was completed in Hallam, only the second nuclear power plant built in the United States.

The experimental reactor produced nuclear power for only about a year before the plant was converted to coal power.

On May 22, 2004, an F4 tornado struck Hallam, killing one person, injuring nearly 40 more, and destroying most of the town.

At 2.5 miles wide, the Hallam tornado was the widest tornado ever recorded at the time, a record that stood until the 2.6-mile-wide El Reno, Oklahoma, tornado of May 31, 2013.

Hallam's population fell to 213 by the 2010 census in the tornado's aftermath, then rebounded to 268 at the 2020 census.

At the 2010 census, Hallam's 213 residents lived in just 78 households, and the median age was a comparatively young 35.1 years.