Historical records indicate that DeSoto and his men, traveling through the South in search of gold, were the first white men to see the Lincoln area. After the ceding of the Creek Indian Territory in 1837, the area's population increased. The community was known as Kingsville until 1856, when its name was changed to Lincoln after Revolutionary War General Benjamin Lincoln, who accepted the British sword of surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. The 1880s brought growth with construction of the Georgia Pacific Railroad through the community and of Dam 5 and Lock 4 on the Coosa River, where the local office of the Corps of Engineers remains at Lock 4. In 1911, the community was incorporated and its first county high school was built, while the original town limits covered slightly more than one square mile. Change began in the 1960s with construction of Logan Martin Lake, the Interstate Highway, and the Alabama International Motor Speedway, later renamed the Talladega Superspeedway. The city council then annexed land around the original town limits and improved and expanded the water system. New parks were built in the 1970s, and in the 1980s the first waste water system was constructed and legislation was prepared creating the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. On May 6, 1999, Honda announced plans to build an automotive plant there, a decision in which the City of Lincoln played a key role.