Founding year: the first Balm post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Balm’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Balm is more historic than 3% of U.S. towns, #581 of 638 in Florida. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
D−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Balm’s overall grade.
Few Florida towns list much on the Register (a typical Florida town has 0.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Balm’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (33% of Florida towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D− to D. The pre-1940 share (±1.1 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 Balm’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
A post office was established here in 1902 and called "Doric"; it was renamed the next month to "Balm". The community was so named on account of their "balmy" air. Prior to 1902, the Seaboard Air Line Railway established Balm as a flag stop. The railroad built a one-room station and water tank. This made Balm a focal point, and a small community including a blacksmith, sawmills, a teacher, and a general store sprang up by 1911. In 1937, electricity arrived, soon followed by a community telephone, set up in a barn for all to use. By 1945 the area had a population of over a thousand.
The Balm post office opened in 1902, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Balm rank for history?
Balm is more historic than 3% of U.S. towns, #581 of 638 in Florida. 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.
How old are the homes in Balm?
0.0% of Balm’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.1 points), against a typical 0.6% for a Florida town; the median home was built in 2014.
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 Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
