More historic than 24% of U.S. towns · #121 of 140 in Iowa. What drives it
Most of Sergeant Bluff was built recently: 8% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1996. Below: maps from 1964 on and the census since 1880.
The Sergeant Bluff post office opened in 1854, the earliest record of the town by name. Two smaller post offices, Woodbury (1862) and Sergeant (1883), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
First census: 167 in 18802020 census: 5,015172 years
How historic is Sergeant Bluff?
C−
More historic than 24% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
Founding year: the first Sergeant Bluff post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Sergeant Bluff’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Sergeant Bluff is more historic than 24% of U.S. towns, #121 of 140 in Iowa. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
C−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Sergeant Bluff’s overall grade.
Iowa towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Iowa town has 9.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Sergeant Bluff’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (17% of Iowa towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D to C. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±4.4 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Sergeant Bluff’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The city was named in honor of U.S. Army Sergeant Charles Floyd, a native of Kentucky who was one of the first men to enlist in the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the early 1800s. Just three months into the two-year journey, Floyd became violently ill and died the next day, August 20, 1804, of what is believed to have been a ruptured appendix. He was buried on a hill overlooking an unnamed river on the Iowa side of the Missouri River. In his honor, the expedition's leaders, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, named the river Floyd River and the hill Floyd's Bluff, now part of Sioux City. Floyd was the expedition's only casualty.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Sergeant Bluff. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1964Sergeant Bluff 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 Sergeant Bluff.
People over time
Sergeant Bluff, census by census
Grew from 167 people in 1880 to 5,015 in 2020, more than tenfold.
14 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Sergeant Bluff’s Wikipedia page.
Stories next door
History across the town line
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Sergeant Bluff post office opened in 1854, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Sergeant Bluff rank for history?
Sergeant Bluff is more historic than 24% of U.S. towns, #121 of 140 in Iowa. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Sergeant Bluff?
8% of Sergeant Bluff’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.4 points), against a typical 22% for an Iowa town; the median home was built in 1996.
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).
From Wikimedia Commons (2), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.
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