Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Most of Sand Point was built recently: 9% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1979. Its Register listing is the St. Nicholas Chapel. Below: 5 old photos and papers, maps from 1963 on, and the census since 1900.
The Sand Point post office opened in 1891, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1898.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Peaked at 976 in 2010; 578 people lived here in 2020.
12 censuses, 1900–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Sand Point’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Sand Point.
Sand Point was founded by a San Francisco fishing company in 1898 as a cod fishing station and trading post. Aleuts and Scandinavians were among the early residents. Gold mining was briefly a part of the economy during the early 1900s. Fishing remains an important industry, as Sand Point is home to one of the largest fishing fleets in the Aleutian Chain.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveFMIB 48357 Portion of the Pelagic Sealing Fleet at Sand Point, Shumagin Islands, June, 18…
In the archiveHunter's collection of brown bear pelts near Sand Point, ca. 1912
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
In the archiveHalloween 1967 Alaska3 decades in the archive, from the 1890s to the 1960s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Sand Point.
1963Port Moller B-2 sheet · 1:63,360U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Sand Point.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Sand Point’s page.
Retake this view · +15The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
The Sand Point post office opened in 1891, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records). Wikidata gives 1898.
One place: the St. Nicholas Chapel (listed 1980).
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (11), the Library of Congress (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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