Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Most of Groveland was built recently: 7% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1981. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1947 on, and old-book passages.
The Groveland post office opened in 1875, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Garrotte (1851), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
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 Groveland’s history is told.
The 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.
From Wikipedia’s history of Groveland.
Groveland has always been an important stop on the highway to Yosemite but really grew in the early 1900s with the development of the Tuolumne River Hetch-Hetchy water project for the city of San Francisco. Groveland is adjacent to the Stanislaus National Forest and is known for the historic Iron Door Saloon.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Groveland, cut from the printed page as they were published.
in the Lake State from the broad Pacific. Spending the next two years in Sierra and Eldorado Counties, in gold seeking, he then came to this vicinity, locating permanently at Groveland. Mining in that vicinity, store-keeping at Second Garrote, and hotel-keeping at Groveland, have engrossed his attention ever since; the last mentioned business continuing under his charge up to the present time, it being carried on in a way highly acceptable to the traveling
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.
BuiltGamble Building and Miner's Bean Kettle is builtBuiltWatts & Tannahill Company Store is built
In the archiveJohn Chaffee and Jason Chamberlain
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1890s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Groveland. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Groveland.
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 Groveland’s page.
Retake this view · +15Nobody well known was born in Groveland itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Groveland’s post office has been open since 1875. Another post office, Garrotte, opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Groveland post office opened in 1875, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Gamble Building and Miner's Bean Kettle (listed 1991, the first). 7 historic buildings in all.
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 Wikimedia Commons (6), the National Register of Historic Places (4), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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.
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