The Section post office opened in 1898, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Mount Zion (1875), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
2020 census: 756128 years
Founding year: the first Section post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Section’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Section is located on land where the Cherokee once hunted and lived. The community was originally known as Mt. Zion when the first post office was established. There were communities such as Kirby's Creek, Gossets Hollow, and Fern Cliff. These communities came together to form the Town of Section. Pioneer settlers came in 1862 to Section, in large numbers. Settlers were required to live on the land for five years before claiming the property as their own. It became known later as "Section" because it was the location of a square-mile parcel of land, known as the 16th Section, required by the federal government to be set aside in support of public schools. Bort Harrison ran a 6-horsepower, water-powered flour and grist mill in 1886, and the first store in the community was built in 1889. The first school was built in the area before 1890, which was the year it burned. Its successor last…
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 (6), 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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