Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 14% of U.S. towns · #140 of 187 in Alabama. What drives it
Most of Muscle Shoals was built recently: 0.8% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1990. Its Register listing is the Florence, Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME) Recording Studios. Below: 5 old photos and papers, maps from 1936 on, and the census since 1930.
The Muscle Shoals post office opened in 1918, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1923.
There are several explanations as to how the city got its name.
One is that it was named after a former natural feature of the Tennessee River, a shallow zone where mussels were gathered and settlers named, and spelled, "Muscle Shoals".
More historic than 14% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Muscle Shoals is more historic than 14% of U.S. towns, #140 of 187 in Alabama. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
Alabama towns list about as much on the Register as the country (a typical Alabama town has 2.7 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Muscle Shoals’ 0.6 sits near the middle of its state (52% of Alabama towns have fewer) while its 1 listings outnumber those of 51% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Muscle Shoals had its own post office from 1918 to 1927.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikipedia’s history of Muscle Shoals.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as Europeans entered the area in greater number, it became a center of historic land disputes. The new state of Georgia had ambitions to anchor its western claims (to the Mississippi River) by encouraging development here, but that project did not succeed.
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 archiveMap-of-tennassee-government-1796
In the archiveUntitled photo
In the archive(Map of northwest Alabama and northeast Mississippi)
In the archive1950 Census Enumeration District Maps - Alabama - Colbert County - Muscle Shoals - ED AL …
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey4 decades in the archive, from the 1790s to the 1880s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Muscle Shoals. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Muscle Shoals.
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 Muscle Shoals’ 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.
Grew from 719 people in 1930 to 16,275 in 2020, more than tenfold.
10 censuses, 1930–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Muscle Shoals’ Wikipedia page.
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Muscle Shoals post office opened in 1918, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records). Wikidata gives 1923.
Muscle Shoals is more historic than 14% of U.S. towns, #140 of 187 in Alabama. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
One place: the Florence, Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME) Recording Studios (listed 2016).
0.8% of Muscle Shoals’ homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate), against a typical 3.2% for an Alabama town; the median home was built in 1990.
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).
From Wikimedia Commons (5), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, 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.
1880
