Founding year: the first Lincoln post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Lincoln’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Lincoln is more historic than 27% of U.S. towns. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Lincoln’s overall grade.
Delaware towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Delaware town has 29.4 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Lincoln’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (14% of Delaware towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D to C+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±11.7 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Lincoln’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Lincoln City was established by Colonel Abel Stokes Small of New York in 1865 in anticipation of the arrival of the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Railroad, planning the "future metropolis of southern Delaware." Early mention of the area include the Library of Congress which has record of a newspaper, The Lincoln Herald, published in the community beginning in October 1865 and the paper was later mentioned in The New York Times in the March 2, 1866 issue. The Evening Telegraph makes mention of a fundraising effort in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to erect a church in Lincoln in the May 29, 1869 issue. By April 1888, the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Railroad had updated their railroad station to "Lincoln City". Colonel Small established a lumber and planing mill in the community, but it was destroyed by fire on January 2, 1889. Days later, the death of Colonel Small on January 6, 1889, …
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Questions about Lincoln’s history
What year was Lincoln founded?
The Lincoln post office opened in 1865, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Lincoln rank for history?
Lincoln is more historic than 27% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Lincoln?
11% of Lincoln’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±11.7 points), against a typical 5.9% for a Delaware town; the median home was built in 1984.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (4), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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