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History · Damascus

Damascus’ post office opened in 1887, and 6 of its places are on the National Register

Most of Damascus was built recently: 8% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1988. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1961 on, and the census since 1970.

1887first post office
6on the National Register
8%homes built before 1940
1old photo or paper
Add an old photoShare a memory
Quick answers

How Damascus began

When was Damascus founded?

1887

The Damascus post office opened in 1887, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 255 in 19702020 census: 382139 years
Founding year: the first Damascus post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Damascus’ past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenOnly 1 old photo is in the public archives. The rest are in attics and albums.Landmarks on the Register6 places on the National Register.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Damascus’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Damascus’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
1 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Retake an old view"The bin is empty," says this father of…: stand where they stood+15Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
On the National Register

6 historic places in Damascus

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

places listed
6
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
6
each building in a district counts
first listed
1992
Damascus Gymnasium
Damascus GymnasiumDamascus CCC Camp, Co. No. 3781 Historic DistrictLee Service StationMelvin Chrisco HouseCarl and Esther Lee HouseEarl and Oza Crownover-Brown House
BuildingsDistricts
Damascus GymnasiumBuilding
Damascus CCC Camp, Co. No. 3781 Historic DistrictDistrict
Lee Service StationBuilding
Melvin Chrisco HouseBuilding
Carl and Esther Lee HouseBuilding
Earl and Oza Crownover-Brown HouseBuilding

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

The story

How Damascus came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Damascus.

Read it all →

Damascus is a town located in the Ozark foothills on a plateau surrounded by clear streams along U.S. Highway 65 on the county line between Faulkner and Van Buren counties. It is most known for its proximity to the Titan II missile base that operated from 1963 until 1980, when a missile explosion killed one person and injured twenty-one. Damascus is home to three Baptist churches, a Church of Christ that was built in 1917, and a Methodist church that was built in 1947.

Damascus is also near the Gus Blass Scout Reservation, a Boy Scout Camp of 3,000 acres maintained by the Quapaw Area Council.

ChaptersBroken Arrow Incident

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Damascus, 1887 to 1961

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1887Post officeThe Damascus post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1930In the archive"The bin is empty," says this father of a large family to the Red Cross visitor
  5. 1961On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Damascus, decade by decade

One decade in the archive so far: the 1930s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.

1930s1 item
"The bin is empty," says this father of a large family to the Red Cross visitor1930"The bin is empty," says this father of a large famil…
1940s–1990snothing yet
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Add from your album
On the map

Damascus on the map, 1961 to 1994

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Damascus. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Damascus on the 1961 USGS mapDamascus on the 1994 USGS map1961Damascus sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Damascus.

Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

"The bin is empty," says this father of a large family to the Red Cross visitor
Retake this view"The bin is empty," says this father of a large family to the Red Cross visitor, 1930

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Damascus’ page.

Retake this view · +15
People over time

Damascus, census by census

0100200300400198020002020Peak: 382

Between 246 and 382 people in every census since 1970.

6 censuses, 1970–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Damascus’ Wikipedia page.

Places that used to be

Places now gone

Damascus’s post office has been open since 1887.

Gone or out of use
Damascus Grade Schoolschool

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Damascus’ history

What year was Damascus founded?

The Damascus post office opened in 1887, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

What is on the National Register in Damascus?

6 listings: 5 buildings, among them the Damascus Gymnasium (listed 1992, the first), and 1 historic district, the Damascus CCC Camp, Co. No. 3781 Historic District,.

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

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 the Library of Congress (1), the National Register of Historic Places (6), 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.