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History · Olds

Olds’ post office opened in 1884, and 17% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1981 on and the census since 1910.

1884first post office
0on the National Register
17%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Olds began

When was Olds founded?

1884

The Olds post office opened in 1884, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 165 in 19102020 census: 192142 years
Founding year: the first Olds post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Olds’ 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 Olds are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Olds’s collection

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

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story so far

Olds, in brief

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

Olds is a city in Henry County, Iowa, United States. The population was 192 at the time of the 2020 census.

Its first post office opened in 1884. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 229 to 192 (-16%).

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

By decade

Olds, decade by decade

Today3 recent
IA78 West - Olds Iowa Sign2016IA78 West - Olds Iowa SignOlds, Iowa2008Olds, IowaIAMap-doton-Olds2004IAMap-doton-Olds
On the map

Olds on the map in 1981

The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Olds.

Olds on the 1981 USGS map1981Crawfordsville sheet · 1:24,000

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

People over time

Olds, census by census

0100200192019401960198020002020Peak: 249

Between 165 and 249 people in every census since 1910.

12 censuses, 1910–2020.

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

Places that used to be

Places now gone

Olds’s post office has been open since 1884.

Gone or out of use
Oldslocale

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Olds’ history

What year was Olds founded?

The Olds post office opened in 1884, 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 →
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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 (3), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.