Founding year: the first Catalina post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Catalina’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Catalina is more historic than 5% of U.S. towns, #107 of 140 in Arizona. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
D−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Catalina’s overall grade.
Few Arizona towns list much on the Register (a typical Arizona town has 0.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Catalina’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (29% of Arizona towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D− to D. The pre-1940 share (±1.1 points) is firm at this size. The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
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 →
What stands out about Catalina’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Much of Catalina's history and the land it now sits on is connected with the Golder Ranch. Lloyd Golder III and family moved to Tucson from Illinois in 1956 and by the following year had purchased the Rancho Vistoso, which at the time was a 4,800 acre ranch. In 1959, Golder bought the nearby 18,000-acre, Rail N. Ranch from Roberta Nicholas whose ranch house is now the administration building for the Miraval Resort. The land included parts of what is now Catalina State Park to the south and part of the land where Biosphere 2 now sits, to the north.
The Catalina post office opened in 1917, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Catalina rank for history?
Catalina is more historic than 5% of U.S. towns, #107 of 140 in Arizona. 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.
How old are the homes in Catalina?
0.6% of Catalina’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.1 points), against a typical 0.4% for an Arizona town; the median home was built in 1995.
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 (2), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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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