Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Its Register listing is the Red Covered Bridge. Below: old-book passages.
The Dover Township post office opened in 1839, the earliest record of the town by name. Two smaller post offices, Limerick (1857) and Green Oak (1890), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
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 Dover Township’s history is told.
Two other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikipedia’s history of Dover Township.
Dover was platted in 1833, and named after Dover, New Hampshire, the native home of a first settler. A post office has been in operation at Dover since 1839. Joseph R. Peterson (1904–1967), Illinois lawyer and state legislator; served as mayor of Dover in 1929 and 1930
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Dover Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The North Prairie Baptist Church was organized in 1859, in the Holliday School-house, in Dover Township, with about twenty members. They continued to worship here and in private houses until 1865, when they erected a church which cost $1,200. Until the year 1870 their growth was rapid, and reached a maximum of one hundred and sixty-two. Since then, owing to removals, deaths, and other causes, the number is now only sixty. The ministers have been Revs. J. G. Johnson, S. Holroyd, J. Wilder, J. D. Pulis, H. C. First, and J. B. Brown. At
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
This is a small village in the north part of Dover Township. It was laid out on the farm of George Limerick, the founder of the town, from whom it takes its name, in the year 1857. The Methodists had a society in this portion of the township, and erected a church at the same time, and a short time previous a church-yard had been designated a little south of the village plat. Mr. Limerick thought a town could be sustained here, and made considerable effort to build one up. He erected a store, and William Townsend and Levi Hansel put up blacksmith shops.
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.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
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.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Dover Township post office opened in 1839, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
One place: the Red Covered Bridge (listed 1975).
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 the National Register of Historic Places (1), 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.
