Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Most of Bowie was built recently: 3% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1960. 1 place in town is on the National Register, among them a historic district with 4 buildings. Below: 6 old photos and papers.
The Bowie post office opened in 1911, the earliest record of the town by name.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Bowie’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Bowie.
The Southern Pacific built a rail line through eastern Arizona in 1880, including a stop at Bowie. Once a junction was made in March 1881 with eastern rail lines in Deming, New Mexico, this line was the second transcontinental rail route across the United States.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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 Bowie’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.
The Bowie post office opened in 1911, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
One place: the Bowie School District No. 14 (listed 2015).
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 the Library of Congress (6), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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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