A dataset of cities mentioned in the U.S. Census and other data sources. In general, cities are included once they reach a population of 2,500. Data is recorded every ten years. See the dataset's GitHub page for details on how the data was gathered.
References
Erik Steiner and Jason Heppler, "United States Historical City Populations, 1790-2010," Spatial History Project, Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, Stanford University, https://github.com/cestastanford/historical-us-city-populations/