Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Its Register listings are the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Passenger Depot-Dows, the Quasdorf Blacksmith and Wagon Shop and the Fillmore Block. Below: 1 old photo or paper from 1917 on and old-book passages.
The Dows post office opened in 1880, the earliest record of the town by name.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Dows’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Dows.
Dows got its start in the year 1880, following construction of the railroad through that territory. Dows is named for a railroad contractor, Col. William Greene Dows.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Dows, cut from the printed page as they were published.
A goodly amount of native timber originally skirted the Pjwa river, but it is fast disappearing before the rush of civilization. In these groves the first settlements were made. Otisville (present Dows) was the first section in which a settlement sprang up. Among the first settlers in what is now Blaine township must be noted A. S. Eskridge, who settled, at the close of
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Dows postuttiee at an early day was a country uttice styled Otisville. It was established in 1858 and was changed to Duws when the town was platted and had its first railway line. Through the kindness of the pustuftice department at Washington, the following list of postmasters is here furnished, especially for this work: R. Iv Train, Decenil)er 23. 1880; J. I'.
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.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveDows IA - 1917One decade in the archive so far: the 1910s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
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 Dows’ page.
Retake this view · +15The 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.
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Dows’s post office has been open since 1880.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
The Dows post office opened in 1880, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Three places: the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Passenger Depot-Dows (listed 1993), the Quasdorf Blacksmith and Wagon Shop (1994) and the Fillmore Block (1998).
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). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (6), the National Register of Historic Places (3), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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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