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Town Overview
Hallam is a farming village of 268 on 0.17 square miles in southwestern Lancaster County, about 20 miles south-southwest of Lincoln. Its motto is The Little Town With A Big Heart, and it has earned it.
The village was platted in 1892 when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad built through. The naming went sideways twice: landowner Frederick Schneider was asked to choose, but every name he proposed already belonged to another Nebraska town, so the honour passed to Jacob Schadd, the first landowner, who suggested Hallau after his home town in Switzerland. A transcription error at the post office turned it into Hallam.
Population has moved with the century: 276 in 2000, 213 in 2010 after the tornado described below, and 268 in 2020 — back to roughly where it started.
Adjacent Counties & Nearby Towns
Lancaster County is Nebraska's second most populous county, with 322,608 residents in 2020 across 846 square miles, and its seat is Lincoln, the state capital. It borders Saunders County to the north, Cass County to the northeast, Otoe County and Johnson County to the southeast, Gage County to the south, Saline County to the southwest, and Seward County and Butler County to the northwest.
Nearest towns. Sprague is about 7 miles north-northeast and Martell about 7 miles north-northeast as well. Firth lies about 10 miles east and Roca about 12 miles northeast. Crete, in Saline County, is the nearest larger town and where most Hallam schoolchildren go. Downtown Lincoln is about 20 miles north-northeast. Distances given here are straight-line measurements.
Points of Interest & Events
The tornado of 22 May 2004. Hallam is known across Nebraska for one afternoon. An F4 tornado with a damage path 2.5 miles wide — at the time the widest tornado ever recorded — struck the village, destroying most of it, killing one person and injuring close to forty. The width record stood for nine years, until an EF3 at El Reno, Oklahoma measured 2.6 miles in May 2013. The same storm badly damaged the Norris school campus to the northeast, which took more than twenty months and over $35 million to rebuild. Hallam itself has spent the years since rebuilding, and its population is now back above the 2000 figure.
The Hallam Nuclear Power Facility. Just outside the village stood one of the earliest commercial nuclear plants in the United States — a 75-megawatt sodium-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor built by Atomics International. Construction began on 1 April 1959; the reactor first went critical in January 1962 and reached full power in July 1963. Ruptures of its moderator elements in February 1964 ended it: after roughly 6,271 hours of operation it shut down on 27 September 1964 and never restarted. Decommissioning finished in 1969, with the underground components entombed on site under monitoring that runs to 2090; monitoring wells have shown no radioactivity above background. The coal-fired Sheldon Power Station occupies the site today.
Events. No recurring town-wide celebration could be independently verified for Hallam at the time of writing, so none is claimed here.
Education & Health
Schools. There is no school in Hallam. Lancaster County records the village as served by two districts — Crete Public Schools and Norris School District 160 — with most in-town students bussed to Crete. Because district boundaries here do not follow village lines, families outside the village limits should confirm their district with the county superintendent.
Health care. There is no hospital in Hallam. Crete has the nearest clinic services, and Lincoln, about 20 miles north-northeast, has the region's full range of hospital care.
Highway Access
Hallam sits on the county road network in the southwest corner of Lancaster County, off the numbered-highway system. The usual routes in are from Crete to the west or U.S. Route 77 to the east, with Lincoln about 20 miles north-northeast.
The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific line that platted the village in 1892 is long gone as a passenger route. The nearest interstate is Interstate 80 north of Lincoln.
Hallam is a village of 268 in southwestern Lancaster County, platted in 1892 by the Rock Island railroad and named — by way of a post office transcription error — for Hallau, Switzerland. On 22 May 2004 an F4 tornado with a record 2.5-mile-wide damage path destroyed most of the village, killing one person and injuring nearly forty; the village has rebuilt and its population is back above where it stood in 2000. One of America's earliest commercial nuclear plants operated just outside town from 1962 to 1964.
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