Founding year: the first Tanque Verde post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Tanque Verde’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Tanque Verde is more historic than 31% of U.S. towns, #40 of 140 in Arizona. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Tanque Verde’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 Tanque Verde’s 3.2 sits above most of its state (69% of Arizona towns have fewer) while its 5 historic buildings outnumber those of 70% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D to B−. The pre-1940 share (±0.3 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 Tanque Verde’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Tanque Verde began as a small community, remote from Tucson, and settled by ranchers arriving to the American West around the 1860s. The name of the area, which means "green tank," is a reference to the algae in a large and prominent stock water tank in the area in the late 19th century.
The Tanque Verde Valley was used by the Apache, a Native American tribe throughout the 19th century. Soldiers from Fort Lowell operated by the U.S. Army in the late 19th century also frequented the Tanque Verde Valley.
In 1886, the residents of the Tanque Verde valley established the Tanque Verde School District as the first significant political entity of the community.
The Tanque Verde post office opened in 1888, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Tanque Verde rank for history?
Tanque Verde is more historic than 31% of U.S. towns, #40 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.
What is on the National Register in Tanque Verde?
Three places: the Charles S. Todd House (listed 2001), the Deep Well Ranch (2004) and the Agua Caliente Ranch Rural Historic Landscape (2009).
How old are the homes in Tanque Verde?
0.2% of Tanque Verde’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate), against a typical 0.4% for an Arizona town; the median home was built in 1983.
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 the National Register of Historic Places (3), 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.
