Biohazard Cleanup Near Witherbee Lincoln, NE

Lincoln is the capital of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County, and with 291,082 residents in the 2020 census it is the state's second-most populous city, behind only Omaha.

Lincoln was founded in 1856 as the village of Lancaster, a tiny settlement on the east bank of Salt Creek whose first settlers were drawn by the area's salt flats and marshes.

Lancaster became the seat of the newly created Lancaster County in 1859, when the village had only a few dozen residents.

The town was renamed for assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1867 — a name an Omaha senator pushed hoping Southern-sympathizing legislators would refuse to move the capital to a city named for Lincoln; the gambit failed and the Removal Act passed.

Chosen as Nebraska's capital in 1867 and platted on a broad new grid that year, Lincoln was formally incorporated as a city on April 1, 1869.

The Nebraska State Capitol, designed by Bertram G. Goodhue and completed in 1932, rises 400 feet and is the second-tallest state capitol building in the United States — and the tallest building in Lincoln.

The University of Nebraska was founded in Lincoln in 1869 with a land grant of about 130,000 acres; today the University of Nebraska–Lincoln enrolls roughly 24,000 students, is the state's largest university, and is one of the city's biggest employers.

The 2020 census counted 291,082 people in 115,930 households in Lincoln — a dramatic rise from the roughly 500 residents the town had at the end of 1868.

Lincoln is home to the Nebraska Cornhuskers, whose football team plays at Memorial Stadium, and the university fields 22 varsity teams across 14 NCAA Division I sports.

Designated a refugee-friendly city by the U.S. Department of State in the 1970s, Lincoln ranked as the nation's 12th-largest refugee resettlement site per capita by 2000, and its schools serve sizable Vietnamese, Karen, Sudanese, and Yazidi communities.