Founding year: the first Avoca post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Avoca’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Avoca is more historic than 79% of U.S. towns. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its age pulls it down.
A−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Avoca’s overall grade.
Iowa towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Iowa town has 9.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Avoca’s 27.7 sits above most of its state (72% of Iowa towns have fewer) while its 4 listings outnumber those of 68% 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 (±5.5 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 Avoca’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
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 year, then a sheet.
1883Sheet 1 of 1
Edition
Sheets
BrickWoodStone
Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
On the National Register
4 historic places in Avoca
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Avoca was founded in 1869 in connection with the construction of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad through the area. The city is named after a place mentioned in the Thomas Moore poem "The Meeting of the Waters," about the River Avoca in Ireland. Avoca quickly developed as a regional service center for the surrounding farms.
The Pottawatomie County, Iowa county government maintains a second courthouse in Avoca to serve the northeastern portion of the county. Council Bluffs, which is the county seat is in the extreme southwestern part of this large county.
Passages that mention Avoca, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, from the earliest historic times to 19071907 · page 181Read the page →
Read the text
The building of a branch railroad of the Rock Island Railroad down the Botna valley from Avoca changed the character of the hamlet of Big Grove, standing in the primeval forest, to an important town. The town of Oakland was laid out by Thomas Tostevin and Samuel Denton, surveyors.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, from the earliest historic times to 19071907 · page 486Read the page →
Read the text
he moved to the town of Anita. Here he secured employment as a section hand with the Rock Island Railroad and was engaged in that work for eight years, at the end of which time he was promoted to the position of section boss and sent to Avoca, Iowa, being there employed in that capacity for twenty years. On the expiration of that period he bought a farm of two hundred and thirty acres on sections 8 and 17, Knox township, Pottawattamie county, just outside the corporation limits of Avoca, and took up his abode thereon in the fall of 1903. This is one of the most valuable farms in the county and in
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
Avoca, 1869 to 1963
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Questions about Avoca’s history
What year was Avoca founded?
The Avoca post office opened in 1869, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Avoca rank for history?
Avoca is more historic than 79% 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 Avoca?
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Pottawattamie County Sub Courthouse (listed 1981, the first).
How old are the homes in Avoca?
42% of Avoca’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±5.5 points), against a typical 22% for an Iowa town; the median home was built in 1957.
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 (8), Wikidata (2), the National Register of Historic Places (4), 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, 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.
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