Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
1 place in town is on the National Register, among them a historic district with 95 buildings. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1913 on, and the census since 1910.
The Oakley post office opened in 1876, 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 Oakley’s history is told.
The 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.
From Wikipedia’s history of Oakley.
The city was named for William Oakley, the proprietor of a 19th-century stagecoach station located at a spring currently located about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of the present townsite known as Oakley Meadows.
Oakley Academy was established in 1901, and Howells Opera House was established in 1907.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveCassia Stake Tabernacle
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1910s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Oakley. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Oakley.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
1913Sheet 1 of 1Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
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 Oakley’s page.
Retake this view · +15Peaked at 1,273 in 1920; 786 people lived here in 2020.
12 censuses, 1910–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Oakley’s Wikipedia page.
The Oakley post office opened in 1876, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
One place: the Oakley Historic District (listed 1980).
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 (1), Wikipedia, 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 Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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