Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: old-book passages.
The Ridgeway post office opened in 1867, 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 Ridgeway’s history is told.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Ridgeway yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Ridgeway is a city in Winneshiek County, Iowa, United States. The population was 275 at the time of the 2020 census. Ridgeway's post office was established in 1867.
Its first post office opened in 1867. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 315 to 275 (-13%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Ridgeway, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The village of Ridgeway lies in Lincoln township, about midway between Calmar and Cresco, on the line of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. The place had neither pope, bishop nor priest at its christening ; nor was it developed under patronage, but " growed," like Topsy, under rather discouraging circumstances. Its horoscope was cast by a class of jugghng peculators, whose interests centered in the railroad towns on either side of it, and whose prophetic afflatus against the place was further augmented by a few subsidized echoes in the employ
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.
Ridgeway’s post office has been open since 1867.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
The Ridgeway post office opened in 1867, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
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 (2), 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.
2024
2004