Lincoln was a suburb established by progressive African Americans who worked in the District of Columbia. It was platted in 1908 along a stop of the WB&A Electric Railway and developed by lawyer, educator, civil servant, and activist Thomas Junius Calloway, vice president and general manager of the Lincoln Land Improvement Company. Most of the earliest houses were designed by Isaiah T. Hatton. Calloway obtained a grant from the Rosenwald Fund to build a new school, which opened in 1921, and he served as its first principal.