Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Saeidb · CC BY-SA 3.08 places in town are on the National Register. Below: maps from 1910 on.
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 La Grange’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.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of La Grange. 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 La Grange.
From Wikipedia’s history of La Grange.
The name is French and means "the barn" or "the farm". The community and a French settlement nearby were also called "French Bar". The community was founded in 1852 around the same time French miners struck gold on a bar in the Tuolumne River. By 1854, there were over 100 buildings in La Grange.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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 sheet.
1910Sheet 1 of 1Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Nobody well known was born in La Grange itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
8 listings: 8 buildings, among them the Kingen Hotel (listed 1979, the first). 9 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 (4), the National Register of Historic Places (8), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the USGS Geographic Names Information System and Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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