Lewiston, Maine, has been inhabited for over 10,000 years, first by Native American tribes known as the Wabanaki, followed by the first white settlers in 1720. The Pejepscot Proprietors, a Boston-based land company, granted the land to Jonathan Bagley and Moses Little of Newbury, Massachusetts, with the mission of settling fifty families, and the town was named to honor the late Job Lewis of Boston. Lewiston's history has been closely tied to the Androscoggin River, which shaped the community, the land, and the river itself over time. Early settler projects included a canal, a timber dam, and a sawmill at Lewiston Falls. Although the first settlers were mostly farmers of English heritage and the population was widely dispersed, a bridge built in 1823 replaced ferries and connected Lewiston with the other side of the river. In the mid-nineteenth century, Boston investors developed canals and textile mills using the river's hydropower, drawing many Irish, French-Canadian, and other immigrants seeking work. Rapid growth from 1,801 people in 1840 to about 20,000 in the 1880s led to the establishment of schools and city services. Lewiston was incorporated as a city in 1863 and elected Jacob Ham as its first mayor. During the twentieth century, population and businesses expanded outward from the city center to suburbs and surrounding towns. Since 1940, Lewiston's population has remained between 35,000 and 40,000, and spaces emptied by mill closures have begun to refill with immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Today the city is home to four colleges and universities, three museums, and more than forty sites on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is one of Maine's most ethnically and religiously diverse and economically powerful cities, with natural areas, river access, outdoor recreation, agricultural land, and natural resources within its limits.