The Bergman post office opened in 1905, the earliest record of the town by name. Four smaller post offices, Oregon (1879), Elixir (1880) and Clabbey (1905), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
2020 census: 426121 years
Founding year: the first Bergman post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Bergman’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Areas very close to the current location of Bergman were known as Oregon Flat and Clabbie. There was also a town around one mile south of present-day Bergman called Keener. Keener was strong in the 1880s and had a population of about 1,000 people. But, Keener began to decline fast by 1892.
The town of Bergman was first incorporated on August 4, 1905. The name was derived from a Dr. Bergman, who provided the land and requested that it be named after her daughter. Miss Edith Bergman who was the daughter of Dr. Bergman (and hence the person who the town was named after) was the first postmistress.
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 (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), 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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