Guest, Sign inJoin

Post to Volta

We’ll email a one-tap link to publish your post. No password, and nothing is public until you click it.
Already a member? Sign in
–Not graded
History · Volta

Volta’s post office opened in 1890

Most of Volta was built recently: 5% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1974. Below: maps from 1914 on and old-book passages.

1890first post office
0on the National Register
5%homes built before 1940
Add an old photoShare a memory
Quick answers

How Volta began

When was Volta founded?

1890

The Volta post office opened in 1890, the earliest record of the town by name.

2020 census: 366136 years
Founding year: the first Volta post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Volta’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Volta are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.On the map since 19214 editions of the USGS map, 1921 to 1971. Watch Volta change.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Volta’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Volta’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
On the map

Volta on the map, 1921 to 1971

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Volta. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Volta on the 1921 USGS mapVolta on the 1947 USGS mapVolta on the 1960 USGS mapVolta on the 1971 USGS map1921Volta sheet · 1:31,680

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Volta.

The story so far

Volta, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Volta yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Volta is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Merced County, California, United States. It is located 5 miles (8 km) west-northwest of Los Banos at an elevation of 105 feet (32 m). The population was 366 at the 2020 census, up from 246 at the 2010 census. From 1858 to 1861, Lone Willow Station a swing station for the Butterfield Overland Mail, was located east of here on the west bank of Mud Slough, 18 miles east of the St. Louis Ranch Station and 13 miles northwest of Temple's Ranch station. A post office operated at Volta from 1890 to 1972. The name was from the Volta Improvement Company.

Its first post office opened in 1890. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population grew from 246 to 366 (+49%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Volta in 1925

Passages that mention Volta, cut from the printed page as they were published.

Meanwhile, or rather a little earlier, the San Pablo and Tulare Extension Railroad had been built across the country from north to south on the West Side. The first town map recorded as a result was a map of Volta. It was adopted and approved by the board of directors of the Volta Improvement Compa…
A history of Merced County, California1925 · page 369Read the page →
Read the text

Meanwhile, or rather a little earlier, the San Pablo and Tulare Extension Railroad had been built across the country from north to south on the West Side. The first town map recorded as a result was a map of Volta. It was adopted and approved by the board of directors of the Volta Improvement Company on March 21, 1890, and signed by Antony Pfitzer, vice-president, and C. W. Smith, secretary, and was recorded on March 28, 1890. Volta was intended to be the town on the West Side, by its founders. The old Dogtown was

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
united in marriage on September 2, 1873, in Contra Costa County, where he turned his attention to freighting among the farmers and merchants. He had filed on a quarter section in Merced County, but he gave that up and settled at Volta in 1894, and rented 100 acres of Uriah Wood; he also leased 800 …
A history of Merced County, California1925 · page 898Read the page →
Read the text

united in marriage on September 2, 1873, in Contra Costa County, where he turned his attention to freighting among the farmers and merchants. He had filed on a quarter section in Merced County, but he gave that up and settled at Volta in 1894, and rented 100 acres of Uriah Wood; he also leased 800 acres and went in for grain farming. He finally bought ninety acres near Volta, where he spent the balance of his life, dying in 1917, at the age of eighty-six; his good wife is still living and is sixty-seven years old. Of this union there

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

Volta, 1890 to 1959

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1890Post officeThe Volta post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1921On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  5. 1959Post officeThe Volta post office closes
By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
Add from your album
Every building

Volta, building by building, 1914

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.

Volta fire insurance map, 1914, sheet 11914Sheet 1 of 1
Sheets
BrickWoodStone

Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices

Volta had its own post office from 1890 to 1959.

Volta
1890–1959
18901960today

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Volta’s history

What year was Volta founded?

The Volta post office opened in 1890, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

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 U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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.