About Lexington
Lexington is the county seat and largest city of Dawson County. The 2020 census counted 10,348 residents, which made it the sixteenth most populous city in Nebraska. The city sits on the Platte River, south-east of North Platte, and covers about 5.10 square miles at an elevation of 2,392 feet. U.S. Routes 30 and 283 run through town, Interstate 80 is three miles south, and the Union Pacific Railroad crosses the city.
History
A frontier trading post stood here in 1860 and was later destroyed. Fort Plum Creek was established nearby in 1864. When the Union Pacific reached the area in 1866, the settlement was moved to the rail line. The town was founded in 1871 under the name Plum Creek, after the Plum Creek Station south of the river on the Overland Trail. In 1889 residents voted to change the name to Lexington. In 1867, during construction of the transcontinental railroad, Cheyenne fighters derailed a Union Pacific train near here and three railroad employees were killed.
The packing plant
Iowa Beef Processors opened a beef packing plant in a former farm equipment factory on 8 November 1990. It grew to employ about 3,200 people. Tyson Foods bought the plant in 2001. Tyson closed the plant in January 2026 and completed the final round of layoffs on 24 July 2026.
People
Lexington's population grew by roughly 52 per cent during the 1990s and passed 10,000 for the first time. In the 2020 census, 60.0 per cent of residents identified as Hispanic or Latino. The Dawson County Historical Society and Museum keeps the local record.
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Lexington is a city in and the county seat of Dawson County, Nebraska, sitting along the Platte River and the Union Pacific main line. The site began in 1866 as a Union Pacific station called Plum Creek, named for the local creek near where the Freeman family had run a trading post before the 1864 Plum Creek Massacre. Dawson County organized in 1871 with Plum Creek as its county seat from the start, and the townsite was formally incorporated in 1874. In 1889, residents voted to rename the town Lexington, feeling “Plum Creek” lacked the dignity of a growing city and caused confusion with similarly named places elsewhere; the new name commemorated the Revolutionary War's Battle of Lexington, and local streets were subsequently renamed to match the theme. By 1888 the young town already supported three newspapers, a 600-seat opera house, and five churches, though a major fire in 1891 destroyed much of downtown. The current Dawson County Courthouse, built in 1913, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the city is home to the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles and the Dawson County Historical Society Museum. For decades the Tyson Foods beef processing plant was Lexington's largest employer, at its peak employing roughly 3,200 people and driving significant Hispanic/Latino population growth in the city and county — the plant officially closed its doors on January 20, 2026, with roughly 300 workers retained temporarily for shutdown operations, a major and still-unfolding economic transition for the community. With a 2020 population of 10,348 — the 16th most populous city in Nebraska — Lexington is reached via Interstate 80 (about three miles south of downtown) and US Route 30.
Lexington, the Dawson County seat, began in 1866 as the Union Pacific station Plum Creek before being renamed in 1889 for the Revolutionary War's Battle of Lexington. Its Tyson Foods beef plant, long the city's largest employer at roughly 3,200 jobs, officially closed on January 20, 2026. Population was 10,348 in 2020, Nebraska's 16th-largest city.