Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Amesmultimedia · CC BY-SA 3.0More historic than 77% of U.S. towns · #41 of 263 in Georgia. What drives it
Most of Adairsville was built recently: 6% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 2001. 1 place in town is on the National Register, among them a historic district with 182 buildings. Below: 4 old photos and papers, maps from 1916 on, and the census since 1860.
The Adairsville post office opened in 1832, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Adamsville (1839), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
More historic than 77% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Adairsville is more historic than 77% of U.S. towns, #41 of 263 in Georgia. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
Georgia towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Georgia town has 10.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Adairsville’s 364 sits above most of its state (84% of Georgia towns have fewer) while its 182 historic buildings outnumber those of 93% of U.S. towns.
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 →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
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.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Adairsville’s history is told.
Lost a third of its people between 1870 and 1880, then grew more than tenfold.
17 censuses, 1860–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Adairsville’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Adairsville.
Adairsville was a small Cherokee village named after Chief Walter (John) S. Adair, a Scottish settler who married a Cherokee Indian woman before the removal of the Cherokee in 1838. It was part of the Cherokee territory along with Calhoun and including New Echota.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveMap of Rome, Adairsville and vicinity
Born hereHenry Morgan Green is born here
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
In the archiveDetail of bridge name plate - Woody Allen Road Bridge, Spanning Oothalooga Creek at Count…
Born hereVic Beasley is born here2 decades in the archive, from the 1860s to the 1960s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Adairsville. 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 Adairsville.
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.
1916Sheet 1 of 1Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
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 Adairsville’s page.
Retake this view · +15Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Adairsville’s post office has been open since 1832. Another post office, Adamsville, 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).
The Adairsville post office opened in 1832, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Adairsville is more historic than 77% of U.S. towns, #41 of 263 in Georgia. 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.
One place: the Adairsville Historic District (listed 1987).
6% of Adairsville’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±3.9 points), against a typical 3.8% for a Georgia town; the median home was built in 2001.
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).
From Wikimedia Commons (12), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), 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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