Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: maps from 1982 on and the census since 2000.
The Bowles post office opened in 1904, 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 Bowles’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Bowles.
A post office operated at Bowles from 1904 to 1943. The name honors a local pioneer family. Bowles was a station on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Valley Division.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Bowles, cut from the printed page as they were published.
He has bought and sold several places. In 1908 he purchased the twenty acres just east of Bowles. In 1911 he built a beautiful residence on Maple Avenue about midway between Bowles and Oleander.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
By hard work and fidelity to his employers, Mr. Verble worked his way up as handler, grader, and foreman, and from 1907 to 1909 acquired that valuable experience which comes through actually doing things. Until August, 1910, he was manager at Bowles, Cal., and later he became manager for the Valley Lumber Company's yards at Kingsburg. This company deals in all kinds of lumber for building purposes and carries a complete line of builders' materials, having the largest lumber yard in Kingsburg.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Bowles.
1982Fresno sheet · 1:100,000U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Bowles.
Between 158 and 182 people in every census since 2000.
3 censuses, 2000–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Bowles’ Wikipedia page.
Nobody well known was born in Bowles itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Bowles had its own post office from 1904 to 1943.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
The Bowles post office opened in 1904, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
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 Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
