Founding year: the first Penryn post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Penryn’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Penryn is more historic than 73% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
B+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Penryn’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 Penryn’s 18.0 sits above most of its state (94% of California towns have fewer) while its 2 listings outnumber those of 60% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B to A. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±9.6 points). 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 Penryn’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
What became Penryn began in late 1864 when a Welsh immigrant named Griffith Griffith established a granite quarry on quarter section of land leased from the Central Pacific Railroad. A siding was completed on February 6, 1865, and the first load of cut stone was shipped less than a week later. The quarry was open for business, but as yet, had no name. The railroad, matter-of-factly, designated the siding "Griffith’s Granite Station", but Griffith had something else in mind.
The busy town of Penryn bases its prosperity upon the enduring granite, and a more solid and lasting foundation could not be found or desired.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Placer county, California1882 · page 152Read the page →
Read the text
1873, taught througlj a term of six months at Gold Ran; returned again to Penryn, in the fall of 1873, and taught in the school until in the summer of 1874, when he again went to the college in Iowa.
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.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Questions about Penryn’s history
What year was Penryn founded?
The Penryn post office opened in 1873, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Penryn rank for history?
Penryn is more historic than 73% of U.S. towns. 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 Penryn?
Two places: the Griffith Quarry (listed 1977) and the Griffith House (1978).
How old are the homes in Penryn?
24% of Penryn’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±9.6 points), against a typical 3.4% for a California town; the median home was built in 1987.
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 National Register of Historic Places (2), 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.
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