El Centro’s post office opened in 1905, and 1 of its places is on the National Register
More historic than 21% of U.S. towns · #452 of 847 in California. What drives it
Most of El Centro was built recently: 3% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1982. Its Register listing is the US Post Office-El Centro Main. Below: 17 old photos and papers, maps from 1910 on, and the census since 1910.
Founding year: the first El Centro post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives El Centro’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, El Centro is more historic than 21% of U.S. towns, #452 of 847 in California. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
C−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of El Centro’s overall grade.
Few California towns list much on the Register (a typical California town has 0.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so El Centro’s 0.2 sits above most of its state (66% of California towns have fewer) while its 1 listings outnumber those of 51% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D to C+. The pre-1940 share (±1.0 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 El Centro’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
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.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
Spanish explorer Melchor Díaz was one of the first Europeans to visit the area around El Centro and Imperial Valley in 1540. The explorer Juan Bautista de Anza also explored the area in 1776 (an elementary school in El Centro now bears his name). Years later, after the Mexican–American War, the northern half of the valley was annexed by the U.S., while the southern half remained under Mexican rule. Small scale settlement in natural aquifer areas occurred in the early 19th century (the present-day site of Mexicali), but most permanent settlement (Anglo Americans on the U.S. side, Mexicans on the other side) was after 1900.
Passages that mention El Centro, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The history of Imperial County, California1918 · page 20Read the page →
Read the text
El Centro. — The town of El Centro, now the capital of the new county, had antedated the county itself by some two years in its organization. The townsite belonged to Mr. W. F. Holt, and a flag station named Cabarker had been established there by the Southern Pacific Railway. Mr. Holt sold this site to a Redlands syndicate which exploited it under the name of El Centro, which has been retained ever since.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The history of Imperial County, California1918Read the page →
Read the text
The new town of El Centro had been founded in 1905, and early in that year Mr. Gardner sold the Press to W. F. Holt, who moved it to El Centro, where it passed successively under the editorial management of F. G. Havens and D. D. Pellett.
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.
Timeline
El Centro, 1905 to 1973
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
The El Centro post office opened in 1905, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does El Centro rank for history?
El Centro is more historic than 21% of U.S. towns, #452 of 847 in California. 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 El Centro?
One place: the US Post Office-El Centro Main (listed 1985).
How old are the homes in El Centro?
3% of El Centro’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.0 points), against a typical 3.4% for a California town; the median home was built in 1982.
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 (3), the Library of Congress (14), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) 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.
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