The Discovery of Lincoln

Our first episode was about the name of Lincoln, Nebraska. Of course that seems obvious, but there is so much more to the story. How did we discover this and why did we choose Lincoln, NE for our first episode? Why am I asking you?

It began when I (Erich) moved to Reno. My wife and I had a van completely full of our belongings which we were driving across the country from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Reno, Nevada. We'd left our children with my parents so we could make longer hours, and more importantly, fit everything in the van.

Leaving Lancaster, PA heading west, you pass from Lancaster County in York County. And in the middle of York County is York, PA. We'd lived in Lancaster long enough to know about the relation to the War of the Roses. Lots of things in Lancaster are named Red Rose: credit unions, festivals, the city's nickname itself. And York has a similar predilection for White Rose. One of the radio stations that serves the two communities calls itself The Rose. (Sorry, I'm getting lost in names, aren't I?)

The surprise came as we were crossing Nebraska. I noticed that we passed into Lancaster County. We didn't see any city named Lancaster though. Instead we saw Lincoln. But the next county to the west was York County, and we did pass through a city called York. I found that strangely similar to the situation in Pennsylvania. And I wondered, my reasoning going something like this:

Hmm, the city of Lincoln couldn't have been named Lincoln before Lincoln was President. It's not like Lincoln was from Nebraska, which wasn't even a state yet.

If it wasn't named Lincoln, it had some other name, presumably.

Could that other name have been Lancaster and the situation was the same as that in Pennsylvania? I conjectured that yes, it could have been!

I talked to my son on the phone that night and told him of my conjecture. He did some research and found out that Lincoln had once been called Lancaster.

Jump forward a few years. (We move around a lot in Namely.) I was talking to Ryan about doing this podcast. As an example of a "name" story we could use, I told him about Lincoln, Nebraska. It turns out, that's where Ryan was born! So he loved the idea of doing a story about its name and opening our podcast with that episode.

On another trip passing through Lincoln, I got a picture of me in front of the Nebraska State Capitol Building. Because, why not?


Podcast on Podbean: https://namelypodcast.podbean.com/
Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/namely/id1633089880
Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3MGLmiA9Ulpu2p8umUU8AV
Podcast on Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL05hbWVseVBvZGNhc3QvZmVlZC54bWw
Podcast on Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e150a7d9-eb42-4676-9e61-48ac5dcf4318/namely

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