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History · Hamilton

Hamilton’s post office opened in 1850, and 23% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1929 on and the census since 1860.

1850first post office
0on the National Register
23%homes built before 1940
Add an old photoShare a memory
Photo: PopePompus · CC BY-SA 4.0
Quick answers

How Hamilton began

When was Hamilton founded?

1850

The Hamilton post office opened in 1850, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 107 in 18602020 census: 119176 years
Founding year: the first Hamilton post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Hamilton’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Hamilton are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Boom and bustPeaked at 538 in 1900; 119 people lived here in 2020.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Hamilton’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Hamilton’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
People over time

Hamilton, census by census

0100200300400500600190019502000Peak: 538

Peaked at 538 in 1900; 119 people lived here in 2020.

17 censuses, 1860–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Hamilton’s Wikipedia page.

The story so far

Hamilton, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Hamilton yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Hamilton is a city in Marion County, Iowa, United States. The population was 119 at the time of the 2020 census.

Its first post office opened in 1850. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 130 to 119 (-8%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Hamilton in 1912

Passages that mention Hamilton, cut from the printed page as they were published.

Thomas Arthur Lister was reared and educated in Illinois and Iowa, the greater part of his life having been spent in Hamilton county. He was only a youth of seventeen years when he first became a resident of Williams, which at that time was just a railway station. For two years he made his home at …
History of Hamilton County, Iowa1912 · page 451Read the page →
Read the text

Thomas Arthur Lister was reared and educated in Illinois and Iowa, the greater part of his life having been spent in Hamilton county. He was only a youth of seventeen years when he first became a resident of Williams, which at that time was just a railway station. For two years he made his home at Iowa Falls, being then engaged in the construction of the railroad between that point and Fort Dodge.

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

Hamilton, 1850 to 1929

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1850Post officeThe Hamilton post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1900CensusPopulation peaks at 538
  5. 1929On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Hamilton, decade by decade

Today4 recent
HamiltonIowaPostOffice2024HamiltonIowaPostOfficeHamiltonIowaChurch2024HamiltonIowaChurchHamiltonIowaPopPlot2021HamiltonIowaPopPlotIAMap-doton-Hamilton2004IAMap-doton-Hamilton
On the map

Hamilton on the map, 1929 to 1982

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Hamilton. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Hamilton on the 1929 USGS mapHamilton on the 1982 USGS map1929Albia sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Hamilton.

Questions about Hamilton’s history

What year was Hamilton founded?

The Hamilton post office opened in 1850, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

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), 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 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.