[3] The county is named for Major General Benjamin Lincoln, an officer in the American Revolutionary War.

When a law was established in 2013 to require the Lincoln County Process to be used for making all Tennessee whiskey, the Benjamin Pritchard's Distillery was exempted by a grandfather clause.

On March 5, 2017, a poultry farm that distributes products to Tyson Foods was confirmed to have a reported a case of Influenza A virus subtype H7N9 detected in birds resulting in the slaughter of 74,000 chickens.

[6] As of the 2020 United States census, there were 35,319 people, 13,548 households, and 9,264 families residing in the county.

25% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

The county backed segregationist George Wallace in 1968, but despite voting Republican for the first time in Richard Nixon’s 49-state 1972 landslide, remained Democratic-leaning up to 1992.

Since then, it has become a Republican Party stronghold, with its candidates winning the county by increasing margins with each succeeding presidential election starting with 1996.