[3] Named after Lincolnshire, England, the village was incorporated on August 5, 1957, from the unincorporated Half Day area when land was purchased to build a residential subdivision.

[4] The first Europeans to visit the area were the French Jesuit explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet.

Shortly after arriving in 1673 at the site of what later became Waukegan,[5] they sailed down the Des Plaines River and made contact with the local Potawatomi, who would dominate the area by 1768.

[4] One of the Potawatomi villages that they encountered stretched along the west bank of the Des Plaines River, from what later became Illinois Route 22 south to Aptakisic Road, the first real settlement in the Lincolnshire and Half Day region.

[6][7] The Lincolnshire area was originally a part of the town of Half Day, the first region settled by non-Native American peoples in Lake County.

Chief Halfda allowed Wright to build his cabin at the south end of the Potawatomi village at the site of the intersection of present-day Milwaukee Avenue and Aptakisic Road.

[11] By 1855, 21 years after the settling of the Half Day area by Wright, the town was a thriving community with a blacksmith's shop, sawmill, country store, and a church.

This prompted the opening of many businesses, including an amusement park, a race track, a bowling alley, a dance hall, and taverns, that catered to visitors.

[6][7] Vernon Township, which encompassed the village of Half Day, was carved up between wealthy farmers after the end of World War I. Edward Ryerson, Adlai Stevenson II, Samuel Insull, and Louis Leverone bought the majority of the territory within Vernon Township's borders.

[13] Leverone, who had purchased the Half Day area, sold a tract of land to developer Roger Ladd and his eponymous company in 1955.

The company organized a residential subdivision out of the ceded town of Half Day and christened it "Lincolnshire", the precursor to the present-day village of the same name.

However, life in the village was problematic, as the new subdivision was served by dirt roads and had neither a sufficient communal sanitation system nor a gas line.

Lincolnshire's police coverage was inefficient, as officers patrolling the area had to be dispatched from Waukegan, approximately 16 miles (26 km) to the north.

As a result, the Cambridge Forest Association (CFA) was formed to lobby for improvement in the livelihoods of the people of Lincolnshire.

[6][7] Lincolnshire's government initially adhered to a conservative and cautious approach, and refused to annex two corporate park divisions in the 1980s.

Lincolnshire also sought to annex the old remnants of the unincorporated community of Half Day from which it was created, but lost in a court battle with the village of Vernon Hills in 1994; the court case set the present-day border between the two villages, which lies along Route 22 up to its intersection with Milwaukee Avenue.

[17] In 2005, Buffalo Grove and Lincolnshire reached a boundary agreement with respect to the allocation of properties surrounding and concerning the unincorporated Prairie View area, which lay in between the two Lake County villages.

[18] Lincolnshire is located at 42°11′47″ North and 87°55′2″ West,[19] and shares a border with the villages of Vernon Hills to the northwest, Buffalo Grove to the southwest, Bannockburn to the east, and Riverwoods to the southeast.

Milwaukee Avenue (U.S. Route 45) runs in a north–south direction through Lincolnshire, into the village of Buffalo Grove to the south and Vernon Hills to the north.

The village of Lincolnshire holds an annual summer festival, mirroring the more publicized and much larger Taste of Chicago in both nomenclature and intention.

It incorporates live music, a raffle, and a fireworks show at local Spring Lake Park into its festivities.

[33] Lincolnshire was also home to two motion picture performers: Alison La Placa, an actress famous for her role as snobbish yuppie Linda Phillips on the sitcom Duet and its spin-off Open House, is an alumnus of Stevenson High School; and Kyle Brandt, another graduate of Stevenson, who played Philip Kiriakis on the soap opera Days of Our Lives and appears as himself on the reality show The Real World: Chicago.

[43] The resort is also home to the Marriott Theatre, which garnered a reputation through the acceptance of 370 Joseph Jefferson Award nominations presented throughout its history.

Andrea Jaeger, a professional tennis player known for her successful, albeit brief, career in tennis that saw progress in Wimbledon and the French Open, graduated from Adlai E. Stevenson High School;[45] Matt O'Dwyer, a former NFL football player who played for numerous teams ranging from the New York Jets to the Green Bay Packers, was born in Lincolnshire.

[47] New York Knicks basketball player Jalen Brunson moved to Lincolnshire in 2010 to attend Stevenson High School.

DeVry University's Keller School of Management operates a branch in Lincolnshire,[58] alongside the Southlakes Campus of the College of Lake County, which is located just to the north in the village of Vernon Hills.

[59] Alumni of Stevenson High School who wish to apply for the University of Illinois may do so at an extension site located in Grayslake, a village in northern Lake County.

Route 22 crosses the Des Plaines River before bridging Bannockburn and Lincolnshire by arching over Interstate Highway 94.

[68] Pace provides bus service on multiple routes connecting Lincolnshire to Vernon Hills, Niles, and other destinations.