Biohazard Cleanup Near Wayne Historic District Wayne, NE

Wayne is a city and the county seat of Wayne County in northeastern Nebraska.

Wayne was founded in 1881 when the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway was extended to that point.

The city was named, together with Wayne County, for Anthony Wayne, the Revolutionary War general.

The 2020 census counted 5,973 residents in Wayne, living in 2,063 households, and the median age was just 23.1 years — a profile shaped by the city's large student population.

Wayne is home to Wayne State College, a public college in the Nebraska State College System enrolling about 4,200 students, whose Wildcats compete in NCAA Division II's Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.

The college traces its roots to the private Nebraska Normal College, founded in Wayne in 1891 by Professor James M. Pile with a faculty of four and a student body of seven.

The state purchased the college in 1909 and reopened it in 1910 as the Nebraska State Normal School; it became a four-year degree-granting institution in 1921 and took the name Wayne State College in 1963.

John G. Neihardt, later Poet Laureate of Nebraska, attended the college in the 1890s and rang its bell to signal the convening and dismissal of classes.

Since 1981, Wayne has hosted the Wayne Chicken Show on the second weekend of July — a free, three-day festival centered on Bressler Park, featuring a parade, chicken-flying contests, an egg toss and the World's Largest Chicken Dance.

The Chicken Show's signature event is the National Cluck-Off, in which contestants must deliver their best chicken impression for 15 seconds, loudly enough to be heard throughout the park.