The Danville post office opened in 1850, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1854. Another post office, Hartford (1841), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
2020 census: 927176 years
Founding year: the first Danville post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Wikidata: 1854.
What stands out about Danville’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Danville yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Danville is a city in Des Moines County, Iowa, United States. The population was 927 at the time of the 2020 census. It is part of the Burlington, IA–IL Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Its first post office opened in 1850. Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 934 in 2010, 927 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Danville in 1879
Passages that mention Danville, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The history of Des Moines county, Iowa, containing a history of the country, its cities, towns, &c., a biographical directory of citizens, war record of its volunteers ..1879 · page 597Read the page →
Read the text
Danville Center, an old settlement, so called because it is the center of the township of that name, has never been laid out into town lots or incorporated as a town, although it is quite thickly populated. The first settlers in the vicinity referred to came together from McDonough County, 111., in the spring of 1834, established claims and built log cabins in the southwestern part of the present township, which was not laid out and sectiortized until 1836 and 1837. The names of these pioneers were William Dickens, Noble Hously, Enoch Cyras and Elihu Chandler. Enoch Cyras intended to build a
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The history of Des Moines county, Iowa, containing a history of the country, its cities, towns, &c., a biographical directory of citizens, war record of its volunteers ..1879 · page 604Read the page →
Read the text
Danville is situated one-half mile north of the center of the township, or the settlement called Danville Center, and, like it, lies on an open prairie. The village was founded by Alanson and Miss Harriet Messenger, in 1854, and laid out into town lots the same year. The village has never been incorporated.
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
Danville, 1841 to 1850
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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 Wikimedia Commons (4), 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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